'Ivy' is pure evil under shimmering gaslight

Joan Fontaine, 'Ivy' (1947). A black widow dressed in white.

By Paul Parcellin

Contains spoilers

“Ivy” (1947)

Even before the action begins we get the message that something is rotten in Edwardian London. A swelling orchestra plays a dramatic score. On screen, an ivy vine and an ornate vase are the backdrop for the opening credits. But as the segment ends the mood turns dark. The orchestra drops into deep ominous tones and the vase morphs into the faint image of a human skull. The message is abundantly clear: brace yourself for a horror show. 

Similarly, Ivy Lexton (Joan Fontaine) seems pleasant enough at first glance, but when her true character is revealed our first impressions of her implode. She’s not forthcoming about herself, but a fortune teller she visits knows the score. The seer gives her the good news but can’t bring herself to reveal the bad. And as we’ll see, things will be very good, then very bad.

Behind Ivy’s genteel appearance her conniving mind is working overtime. She’s after the stuff femmes fatale yearn for: money, luxury and status. Beneath her upper crust manners and good breeding she’s a cold, calculating predator. Her love of riches, glittering gowns, oversized hats and jeweled handbags drive her to use ruthless tactics on those around her — materialism gone mad, you might say. 

Fontaine, Richard Ney. Ivy tends to her bedridden husband.

By all appearances she’s blissfully wed to Jervis Lexton (Richard Ney), although Jervis drops hints that she’s nearly spent them into the poorhouse. He seems to accept her foibles with mildly exasperated resignation. But the more we learn about them the worse the picture gets. As the fortune teller revealed, she’s got another man on the side, physician Roger Gretorex (Patric Knowle), and she’s sniffing around for yet another, a wealthy and dashing aviation entrepreneur, Miles Rushworth (Herbert Marshall), whom she’s dying to sink her teeth into. 

Due to her profligate spending, she and hubby reside in a dingy hovel that looks barely one step above an almshouse. After meeting Rushworth at a social gathering she charms the aviation man into granting hubby a decent job at his company. They move into more suitable quarters, a stark white apartment, the stunning creation of art director Richard H. Riedel and producer William Cameron Menzies [Menzies won a special Academy Award for his production design of “Gone With the Wind” (1939)]. The place is surreally impersonal and spooky, with its white festoon architectural ornaments (they look like icy funeral wreaths). Ivy resolves to get rid of her spouse and paramour and throw herself at Miles, who’s too principled to carry on with a married woman. She figures out a way to ditch both inconvenient men in her life in a cold heartedly conceived twofer. 

Ivy prepares a brandy for her husband.

For a while she maintains her false front and almost no one sees through it. But that changes thanks to Roger’s overbearing mother, Mrs. Gretorex (Lucile Watson), an observant maid, Martha Huntley (Sara Allgood), and a seen-it-all-before police officer, Inspector Orpington (Cedric Hardwicke). 

Frequent Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett [“The 39 Steps” (1935) and “Foreign Correspondent” (1940)] wrote the screenplay based on the novel “The Story of Ivy” (1927) by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Sam Wood, whose credits include such diverse films as “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1939) and “A Night at the Opera” (1935), helmed this production. 

Fontaine's competitive sister, Olivia de Havilland, was originally set to play the title role, but at the last minute pulled out. She was concerned that audiences would stay away from the film due to the unsympathetic nature of the lead character. She also worried that the role would be a career killer. The sisters were feuding and de Havilland’s agent offered the role to Fontaine — an act of retribution? Fontaine gladly accepted. It turned out that de Havilland’s instincts were correct and the film was not a commercial success. Never mind, “Ivy” is still a cracking good noir featuring a luminous Joan Fontaine performance, an absorbing story and arresting scenic design. 

U.K’s Powerhouse Films is scheduled to release “Ivy” in a limited edition Blu-ray disc Feb. 16, 2026. It’s a high definition remaster with original mono audio featuring audio commentary with academic and film curator Eloise Ross. Now the bad news: many Powerhouse releases, including this one, are Region B discs and won’t play on most U.S. Blu-ray devices. But if you’re in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia or New Zealand, or have a Region B or region-free player, you’re in luck. However, an Australian region-free Blu-ray (Imprint Films) was released in April, 2025, and can be purchased on Amazon and eBay.  

 

Live it up! 11 essential nightclubs of noir

Karen Morley, 'Scarface' (1932).

By Paul Parcellin

In noir, nightclubs are smokey hideaways where criminality thrives under moody lighting. Ritzier than typical barrooms, they are havens for hedonists and the racketeer elite. 

Crucial to these nightspots are floorshows. A chanteuse may whisper a torch song designed to torment an ex-lover sitting ringside. Her words spell out jagged details of his predicament, defining his emotional state or perhaps the moral decay that engulfs him. 

In noir, entering a nightclub is like stepping into hell’s waiting room. It may be steamy and dazzling at first, but all exits lead to damnation. 

Here are the top 11 nightclubs of noir, hot spots where the underworld cools its heels and lives are sometimes broken: 

Osgood Perkins, Paul Muni, Karen Morley, 'Scarface.'

‘Scarface’ (1932)

The Paradise is everything a swank gangster nightclub should be: an orchestra wails swing jazz numbers, swell looking couples fill the dance floor, guys are clad in their formal best, ladies sway to the rhythm in chic evening dresses. Wiseguys Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) and Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) spar over glamor girl Poppy (Karen Morley) — Tony, an upstart, comes out on the winning end, but egos are bruised. “Scarface” wasn’t the first crime movie to use a nightclub setting, but it sure knows how glamorize the seductive charm of such establishments. Without warning, shots are fired, a gunman is subdued, the orchestra plays on and patrons carry on unruffled. How gangster can you get?

Roger Duchesne, 'Bob le Flambeur.'

‘Bob le Flambeur’ (1956) (‘Bob the Gambler’)

Bob Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is a former bank robber earning his keep at all night poker matches and other games of chance. A suave sophisticate, he’s respected as a prince among thieves. No one can cross a cafe floor and command the respect Bob receives from fellow larcenists, gamblers and even the police. His nightclub of choice is Jour et Nuit (Day and Night), but he’s a creature of the latter. Sleeping when the sun rises, he only comes alive when the lights of Montmartre twinkle at dusk. Parisian cafes, bars and nightclubs are his domain. When his luck turns bad he looks for alternative means to pay his debts. That one last big score is the thing that tempts graying outlaws, even retired ones, and Bob is no exception. 

Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) puffs on a cigarette
at the Fisherman. 'D.O.A.' (1949)

‘D.O.A.’ (1949)

 Calling San Francisco dive bar the Fisherman a “nightclub” is stretching the definition of the term until it screams. But the F’man’s got a stomping jazz sextet that cannot be denied a mention here. The joint’s a beatnik hangout where straight-arrow accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) wanders in and sips a beverage that changes his life forever. The place is a seething mass of hipsters grooving to the bebop beat as the band blows a frenzied set that sends the bohemian crowd into orbit. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and the scene teeters on chaos, much like Frank’s immediate future.

Edward G. Robinson, 'Little Caesar.'

‘Little Caesar’ (1931) 

The hoods hang out upstairs at Club Palermo, a gangster stronghold in the big city. Stickup man Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) pokes his beak in to talk with crime boss Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields), who runs the club and uses it as a front for his illegal operations. Rico passes muster and is immediately introduced to the rest of the gang. Besides being an entertainment spot for the corrupt, the club becomes the incubator that helps Rico launch his criminal career. At the club downstairs he eventually commits a brazen and violent act in public that shakes up the city’s mobster elite and catapults him to the top of the syndicate.  

Cathy Rosier, Alain Delon, François Périer, 'Le Samouraï.'

‘Le Samouraï’ (1967)

Martey's, an upscale Parisian jazz lounge, attracts a more refined crowds than do other nightspots mentioned here. But criminals operating behind the scenes are a continuous presence there. Hired killer Jef Costello (Alain Delon) visits the establishment to carry out some business for an employer. He isn’t the kind of assassin you’d expect him to be. Jef lives the austere life of a Buddhist monk and adheres to the code of the samurai. He’s an outsider among criminals in this nocturnal playground. Vocalist and keyboard player Valérie (Cathy Rosier), who performs at the club, witnesses something she wasn’t meant to see, and Jef soon finds that he’s the one being hunted.

Richard Widmark, Mike Mazurki, 'Night and the City.'

‘Night and the City’ (1950)

The Silver Fox nightclub sits among the cheap clip joints of London’s Soho district. It’s where low rent hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) hangs out, ever on the lookout for a fast buck or a get rich quick scheme. Harry uses his gift for gab to pry loose greenbacks from the unwary, especially his lady friend. He’s in his element at the Silver Fox, a place where bar girls fleece tipsy customers, sweet talking them into buying overpriced champagne and chocolates. Everyone there is either a crook or a victim. Beneath his bravado, Harry fears he’ll ultimately be one of the latter. When he schemes to become a professional wrestling promotor things don’t go his way. Unfortunately for him, he’s burned too many bridges to get a free pass this time.

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, 'The Big Sleep.'

‘The Big Sleep’ (1946)

Crime kingpin Eddie Mars’s Cypress Club plays host to the denizens of a dark side. In it, illegal gambling is the main attraction and all things illicit are for sale. In between crooning pop tunes for the punters, rich girl Vivian Sternwood (Lauren Bacall) tries her luck in the casino. When she pockets a thick wad of cash at the roulette wheel she nearly gets robbed, but private dick Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) steps in and saves her bacon. Their liaison leads to a well remembered steamy conversation of double entendres involving race horses and jockeys. The Cypress is not the kind of place where Vivian or her younger sister, Carmen (Martha Vickers), should frequent, but these girls do love trouble.

Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, 'Road House.'

‘Road House’ (1948)

Jefty's Road House isn’t a swank, big city club. It’s a backwater joint with a bowling alley. A love triangle with Chicago songstress Lily Stevens (Ida Lupino), club owner Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark) and club manager Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde) sets the drama in motion. In one of its best scenes, Ida Lupino makes a lukewarm crowd sit up, take notice and applaud when she sings “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” She isn’t a trained vocalist, and her slightly raspy two-pack-a-day voice radiates a world-weary sense of dissatisfaction, which is what makes the scene work. It’s all about heartache and raw emotions and she’s got a hell of a story to tell.

Raymond Burr, 'The Blue Gardenia.'

‘The Blue Gardenia’ (1953)

Loneliness seems to float in the air like clouds of cigarette smoke as Nat King Cole warbles the film’s title song in the softly-lit Blue Gardenia club, a South Seas-themed watering hole. It’s a romantic setting, but one couple is having a difficult time of it. Calendar artist Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) plies Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) with cocktails. Norah hesitates to imbibe, but Harry is insistent. The music and atmosphere reflect the isolation Norah feels, and the club resonates her emotional distress. Matters get worse when a dark crime is committed and a memory blackout obscures the events of the previous evening.

Magali Noël, 'Rififi.'

‘Rififi’ (1955)

L’age d’Or (The Golden Age) is an ironically appropriate name for the nightclub of choice for a band of French jewel thieves who are casing out a stronghold of precious stones. Aging gangster Tony "le Stéphanois" (Jean Servais) is persuaded by his buddies to help rob an exclusive jewelry dealer. Tony wants to go for a bigger score than just the ice in the store window: their target switches to the retailer’s highly secure vault. It’s a flawless plan, or so they think, but relationships with women in their lives complicate matters. Viviane (Magali Noël), a chanteuse at the club, performs the film’s memorable title song, describing the plight of a woman in a relationship with a roughneck gangster. She ought to know — her beau is in on the heist.

Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, 'Gilda.'

‘Gilda’ (1946)

Rita Hayworth’s iconic hair toss helps make her vocal rendition of “Put the Blame on Mame” sizzle in what is perhaps the greatest noir nightclub moment of all time. She’s voluptuous, self assured and more than a bit dangerous. The scene is packed with drama as Johnny Farrell (Glen Ford) looks on with fury and ringsiders scramble for the gloves and necklace she tosses their way. Make no mistake, she weaponizes her performance in a psychological battle with Johnny and her husband, Ballin Mundson (George Macready). When she asks the gentlemen in the house to help undo the back of her black strapless gown she may as well be lighting the fuse on a powder keg.

‘Scarlet Street’ at 80: Flirtations with a femme fatale can often lead to trouble — and sometimes murder

At her service. Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson, 'Scarlet Street' (1945). 

By Paul Parcellin

Contains spoilers

When “Scarlet Street” premiered 80 years ago this month it was not uniformly praised by critics, and several cities outright banned it due to its dark content. The film hinted at such taboo topics as sex out of wedlock and prostitution, and featured a capital crime that went unpunished in the conventional sense. 

New York, Milwaukee, and Atlanta thought it too controversial and forbade local screenings. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called it “a sluggish and manufactured tale,” while Time magazine called the plot “clichéd,” adding that the story focuses on “dimwitted, unethical, stock characters.” 

Times have changed and so has the critical response to the film. In later years Cinema Journal called it “a dense, well-structured film noir,” and the Chicago Reader included the film in its list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100. TCM Noir Alley host Eddie Muller includes “Scarlet Street” among his top 25 favorite films noir.

Looking back on it eight decades after its release, “Scarlet Street” is relatively tame compared with contemporary fare, yet it’s understandable that its gritty themes of vice and corruption must have been a shock to the American public in 1945. 

Fortunately, preservationists rescued it from public domain purgatory. Kino Lorber’s 2024 release in 4K UHD and Blu-ray is sharp and clear and the sound is crisp. It’s a pleasure to view it as it was meant to be seen upon its release so many years ago.

“Scarlet Street” (1945)

Mild mannered Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson), a cashier with a flair for art, is unhappily married to shrewish Adele (Rosalind Ivan), who keeps him on a short tether. His life changes one night when he rescues a damsel in distress, Kitty March (Joan Bennett), who’s being accosted on a dark Greenwich Village street. 

Coincidentally, earlier that evening Chris glimpsed his boss’s blonde paramour and wondered aloud what it would be like to be loved by a young beautiful woman (love is probably the last thing on the blonde bombshell’s mind). Then fate seemed to drop Kitty, the woman of his dreams, at his feet.

Lies and misunderstandings

Kitty, whom we easily infer is a streetwalker, mistakenly thinks Chris is a prosperous artist. Flushed with the excitement of meeting an attractive woman, he does nothing to dispel her false image of him. In one exchange she hints to starry-eyed Chris that she’s a lady of the night, but he doesn’t get it. He guesses she’s an actress, which she is, but not in the traditional sense. 

Later, Kitty’s pimp boyfriend Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea at his smarmiest) hears opportunity knocking and convinces her to take the sucker for all he’s worth, and she does so while keeping Chris teasingly at arm’s length. 

Dan Duryea, Joan Bennett. Kitty and Johnny Prince.

“Scarlet Street” is a study of the ways people delude themselves, embracing comfortable lies that warm them and offer false hope in their hours of despair.

Misunderstandings abound. Chris mistakenly believes that Kitty might love him, as she strings him along and bleeds him for cash. Johnny is her one true love, Kitty thinks, even when he slaps her around. He lives off of her earnings and calls himself a man of leisure, and sporting a jaunty straw boater he dresses the part. 

Flawed first impressions

Johnny and Kitty, out of delusional thinking or plain stupidity, believe that they’ve hit the jackpot with Chris as their patsy. The misconception starts when Kitty and Chris first meet. He’s just been feted by his employer and happens to be gussied up in a tuxedo. That’s enough to convince her that he’s in the chips.

Even Adele is delusional in her idealization of her deceased husband, Patch-eye Higgins (Charles Kemper), a police detective who took an ill-fated dip in the Hudson. She torments Chris with her worshipful praise of the dead hubby while castigating the nebbish painter for his shortcomings. Higgins’s portrait hangs over the mantlepiece as a reminder to Chris of the low esteem in which his wife holds him.

Chris in exile. A bathroom Rembrandt.

“Scarlet Street” could be taken as a dark comedy. The same wrong-headed ideas and miscommunications in the hands of, say, Preston Sturges or Ernst Lubitsch, would be uproarious. Here, they are bathed in pathos, even when director Fritz Lang tosses in an occasional chuckle or a sudden upbeat shift in the plot.

In an unexpected turn of events, Chris’s paintings are well received by the art establishment, but only after Johnny schemes to make art-world big shots think that Kitty painted them. The selfless Chris is pleased, not angry, that his paintings are finally being seen, even if Kitty is given credit for them. But he admits that gallery owners wouldn’t be interested if they knew he painted them. 

Awarding undue credit

But a beautiful young woman can grab the art world's attention, especially when a respected critic takes a romantic interest in her. Kitty is capable of sleeping her way to the top, but artistic talent is another matter. In the film's pessimistic but probably largely true vision of the art game, we get a hint of the way art stars are made, and how almost inevitably their work ends up in the hands of the undeserving. 

The film is based on the French story “La Chienne” (literally The Bitch) by Georges de La Fouchardière. Director Jean Renoir adapted the novel to the screen in “La Chienne” (1931), which presents the female lead, Lulu (Janie Marèse), explicitly as a prostitute, something American production codes at the time would prohibit. 

Chris's portrait of Kitty.

This is Lang’s second go-around with this cast. In “The Woman in the Window” (1944), Robinson, Bennett and Duryea play roles similar to those in “Scarlet Street.” The story is much the same, too, with manipulative Alice Reed (Bennett) upending the life of Prof. Richard Wanley (Robinson) and crooked ex-cop Heidt (Duryea) making a tragic situation worse. 

Both films feature painted portraits of femmes fatale, each inaccessible behind plate glass storefront windows. In both films Robinson is tempted toward adultery and his flirtations result in shattered lives. 

Greatly different endings

Adapted from J. H. Wallis's 1942 novel “Once Off Guard,” “The Woman in the Window” has a twist at the end that gives the film an upbeat conclusion, unlike “Scarlet Street,” which comes in for a hard landing, leaving Chris humiliated and psychologically broken. 

“Scarlet Street” might seem like an uncompromised do-over of “The Woman in the Window,” yet Lang maintained that the film’s upbeat coda was his choice, not something forced on him. So be it, but clearly, “Scarlet Street” has the better ending. 

Dec. 28 marks the 80th anniversary of the “Scarlet Street” theatrical premiere. 

‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’: A Tinseltown Allegory that Ends Unhappily Ever After

Michael Sarrazin, Jane Fonda, 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' (1969).

Harrowing Tale of Dance Marathons and the Depression-Era Downtrodden. But Those Marathons Remind Us of Something Else — the Studio System at its Most Heartless

Contains spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

"They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” is a noir tragedy about exploitation of the desperate and beleaguered in Depression-era Los Angeles, right?  True, but that’s only part of the story.

Based on the 1935 novel by hardboiled scribbler Horace McCoy, the movie’s plot revolves around the very real and very savage dance marathon competitions of the 1920s - ’30s. 

They were grueling, days-long endurance challenges witnessed by audiences of paying customers. Exhausted contestant couples shuffled and foxtrotted their way toward death’s door in hope of being the last ones standing as the orchestra played on. 

A possible dream come true

Winners would grab a sack of prize money — in theory — and stave off starvation another day. Others left through the back door, sometimes on gurneys.  

The film does double duty, not only as a historic document of unencumbered human depravity, but also as an allegory for the movie biz, particularly the old Hollywood studio system, and maybe the entertainment industry as a whole.  

Not convinced that there’s a connection between marathoners dancing themselves to death and the movie industry? Try this on for size:

Dreamers and the destitute 

Robert (Michael Sarrazin) and Gloria (Jane Fonda) are beaten down by life. Both are hayseeds dwelling on the fringes of Hollywood’s motion picture industry. Unlike the naive Robert, Gloria has been around long enough to be exhausted by false promises and rejection. Her personal life is in ruins when fate pushes the two of them together, thrusting them into the dance marathon spotlight. They make a cute couple but there’s no romance between them. It’s all about keeping up an image that’s appealing to the gawkers. 

Jane Fonda, Red Buttons, Susannah York, Michael Sarrazin.

Survival is the object

Beneath the surface, their’s is a strategic partnership. Each depends on the other for strength when despair sets in, and it does visit often.

The two are like the stars and starlets whose off-screen relationships (genuine or not) were often manufactured for the gossip rags and manipulated by the studios to fit the images crafted by Hollywood publicity departments. Actors were matched up, packaged and kept beholden to the studio for ongoing exploitation.

Making a show out of their pain

Contestants push themselves to physical and emotional collapse for a small chance of taking home a cash prize. It’s a lot like the struggles of actors who sacrifice a lot for a small chance of becoming a star.

Meanwhile, the contest's promoter and emcee, Rocky Gravo (Gig Young), keeps the audience entertained with periodic announcements highlighting juicy tidbits about the contestants’ personal woes and real life tragedies. 

Personal privacy be damned

The most private details of contestants’ lives are like breadcrumbs the emcee tosses to the crowd to keeps them engaged, much like studios of bygone days, shaping rising stars’ public images and exploiting their personal lives to sell tickets.

Gravo spells out the contest’s dramatic core in his patter to the audience. 

“Here they are again, folks! These wonderful, wonderful kids! Still struggling! Still hoping! … the marathon goes on, and on, and on! How long can they last?”

Like a prizefight, the marathon is buoyed by the palpable drama of contestants' suffering and their inevitable collapse, which holds the audience in suspense. 

Susannah York, Michael Sarrazin, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia.

Torturous antics for cheap entertainment

Dancers are initially sweet-talked into signing up for these punishing competitions, usually unaware of what's in store for them. The audience demands to see human agony and the competitors are pushed to give the crowd what it wants. It's a bit like the studio system’s restrictive contracts and bullying tactics that kept actors working endless hours, wringing every last dollar of value out of them.

An astonishing admission

Backstage at the marathon, Robert is dumbfounded when Gravo refers to the supposed competition as a “show” rather than a contest.

“They don’t give a damn whether you win,” says Gravo. “They just want to see a little misery out there so they can feel a little better, maybe.”

The spectacle of physical decline

Scenes show contestants’ bodily deterioration — they grow paler, shakier, more broken — while the show’s lights stay bright and the emcee sets an upbeat tempo.

In a parallel universe, the studio system thrives on the gradual burnout of its labor — stars aging, being pushed past their limits — while the machine presents a glossy, unaffected front. Their bodies become the product, worn down for continued profit.

The big break that never was

The down-and-out dancers take a shot at winning a jackpot. If they come out on top their woes will go away, or so they think. But the game is rigged. Fame and wealth are elusive. Most go back home to Iowa or wherever, or maybe land on the streets. The big payoff is a prize that never materializes.

Movie biz promises of a “next picture” or a “breakout role” keep actors in their place and hopeful despite the abuse they suffer.

As Gloria observes, “Maybe it’s just the whole damn world is like Central Casting. They got it all rigged before you ever show up.”

Gig Young, the puppetmaster pulling the strings.

The emcee is like a studio exec

Gig Young, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as the emcee, is appropriately oily as the character who controls the rules, shifts the goalposts and “packages” human misery into an entertainment product — much like movie producers who shape or kill careers.

The marathon organizers abruptly change the rules, limit rest periods and adjust incentives to strain contestants’ endurance.

It's all too similar to studio contracts and brutish demands that set long work hours, introduced unpredictable script rewrites and image “retooling.” Except for top-tier actors, talent had little say about work conditions. 

The audience is part of the exploitation

In a scene showing the publicity campaign promoting the marathon we see the audience’s voyeuristic fascination interspersed with shots of photographers and newsreel coverage. 

A woman volunteers to sponsor Robert and Gloria and seems absorbed in the illusion of a romantic relationship between them. In moments of audience participation, spectators are told that their enthusiasm “keeps the dancers going,” as if their passive gaze helps ease the suffering on the dance floor, thus relieving them of any guilt that might impede their enjoyment of such savage entertainment.

Reaching the breaking point

Gloria, finally broken and unable to escape the vicious cycle she’s stuck in,  makes a final dreadful choice and Robert becomes a party to her collapse. 

The dance marathon disguises cruelty under a veil of competition, similar to the way Hollywood glamorizes the struggle of hopefuls who are ultimately exploited and often tossed away. 

In the end, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” is one of the least romanticized depictions of the Gold Age of Hollywood to hit the screen. “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) and “The Day of the Locust” (1975) similarly take a hard look at Hollywood's decadence and exploitative practices. 

In all, we may love the movies, but when it comes to seeing how the sausage is made, not so much.

‘Pale Flower’: Gambling dens, yakuza and a mysterious woman who lives on the edge

A taste for danger. Saeko (Mariko Kaga), "Pale Flower" (1964).

By Paul Parcellin

“Pale Flower” (1964)

It’s clear from the start that Masahiro Shinoda’s “Pale Flower” isn’t your typical yakuza picture — the kind that’s simmered in the Japanese underworld’s intricate codes of conduct, with a lead character who agonizes over prickly themes such as honor and loyalty. 

“Pale Flower” covers the same slice of society as other yakuza films, but the soundtrack tips us off that we’re in for something different. Avant-garde classical composer Toru Takemitsu’s jagged, dissonant orchestral score is unlike anything we’d expect to hear in a crime film, regardless of its country of origin. It grabs our attention immediately and won’t let go. 

A vision of Japan's underworld

Like Western films of its ilk, “Pale Flower” has a shadowy noir look, nervous edits and dreamy, hallucinatory imagery. It’s a vision of the Japanese underworld as Jean-Pierre Melville or Robert Bresson might have pictured it. 

Saeko (Kaga) and Muraki (Ryô Ikebe) on the streets of Yokohama. 

Much like his European counterparts, director Shinoda, a founding member of the Japanese New Wave of filmmakers, infused “Pale Flower” with a sense of alienation and dislocation, reflecting the aftermath of brutal warfare in bygone times. 

This is a gangster movie and a love story mashed into one, and if that sounds pretty conventional, it is — at least on the surface. But it’s also the story of Japan after World War II, defeated and held under the sway of the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. 

Audio mosaics of layered, electronically enhanced sound that help define the overall feel of “Pale Flower.” 

There’s a sense of ennui among the citizenry of Yokohama, where the story is set. Clocks keep ticking but time stands still, and denizens of this metropolis seem to exist in a state of suspended animation. Gangster business carries on, but emotional relationships seem stunted. The populace is numb, still recovering from a stunning wartime defeat. Traditional rituals and customs are practiced, but have a hollow ring. 

Defining a mood with sound

The soundtrack reflects that dreamy yet unsettling mood, blending practical audio effects with orchestrated music. Takemitsu didn’t simply compose the score after the film was finished, he took part in the film’s development process, crafting audio mosaics of layered, electronically enhanced sound that help define the overall feel of “Pale Flower.” 

Saeko and Muraki in a game of chance.

In gambling den scenes, a central focus of the film, players shuffle what are supposed to be stiff, almost wooden, cardboard playing cards, known as hanafuda (in this case tile playing cards were used to accentuate the sound). Adding juice to the audio track, an electronically enhanced sound recording of two tap dancers seamlessly merges with the cacophony of clicking tiles. The result is a hypnotic percussion sequence that adds a surreal touch to scenes of drop-dead serious gamblers attending to business. 

Another visually and sonically arresting scene takes place in a shop full of clocks. Their kinetic ticking, like the clicking and clacking of gambling cards, reminds us that clocks move forward, even if life here seems to stand still.

Apart from its rich and varied tapestry of sound, “Pale Flower”’s on-screen action is mostly restrained and many scenes are dialogue heavy. But just as the drama begins to trail off an impromptu car race, nestled between more muted sequences, provides an adrenaline rush. The gasoline fueled competition is more than just squealing tires and revving engines. Like almost every facet of Shinoda’s film, the racing sequence offers rich details about the characters.

Muraki, out of prison and back to gang life.

Saeko (Mariko Kaga), the mysterious love interest of fresh-out-prison Muraki (Ryō Ikebe), has a childlike, giggling manor. But her naive appearance masks her true self. She’s a thrill seeker addicted to danger and risk taking. Muraki, older and hardened to the ways the underworld, is deliberate in his actions and careful in each step he takes. But they bond over a shared sense of despair and boredom. Both lead lives of material comfort that lack intrinsic value. 

Saeko, however, is more of a puzzle ...  we see nothing of her life outside of her and Muraki’s nocturnal wanderings.

The source of Muraki’s depression stems from the crime that put him in prison — killing a member of a rival crime family. He learns that while he was in prison the dead man’s crime family merged with his gang, so the killing and the time he served had no strategic purpose or importance.

Saeko, however, is more of a puzzle. She seems to come from a family of means, but other than an unexpected, nerve racking encounter between her and Muraki in a public place (others are around so they pretend to be strangers), we see nothing of her life outside of her and Muraki’s nocturnal wanderings.

Their go-to respite, gambling, is the one activity that they enthusiastically share, but it’s not without its difficulties. It’s OK for a woman’s to be in a gaming room as long as she’s there to attend to a male gambler. But a female gambler is almost too much for the yakuza to stomach. The card tables are crowded with tattooed mobsters stripped to the waist, a virtual mountain of sweaty flesh which all but surrounds the delicate blossom as she takes her place with the boys. And she never bats an eyelash.

Stepping up her game

With Muraki speaking for her, Saeko is allowed to step up to increasingly higher-stakes betting. Muraki and her romance is mostly under wraps, almost non-existent you might say. Their shared malaise and gambling den outings are more important than love and sex. Saeko’s fixation with taking increasingly greater risks is sated by Muraki’s mob status, which opens gambling den doors. But he does so with growing misgivings. In her he sees a moth tempted by an open flame. 

Based on an original story by Shintaro Ishihara, the film was scripted by Ataru Baba. Shinoda reworked the script significantly and Baba was not pleased with the result. He decried the film’s dynamic editing and soundtrack, which he felt obscures his interpretation of the story. Also troubling to the screenwriter was the film’s emphasis on nihilism, which was merely implicit in the script he labored over.

But nihilism is indeed the guiding force in “Pale Flower.” Consequently, bored, disenchanted risk-takers will in time face the peril their activities invite. 

A troubling omen appears in the betting parlors when Yoh (Takashi Fujiki), a heroin addict who fled Hong Kong after committing two murders, lingers on the periphery of the gaming tables. He’s like an ever present angel of death who’s come to perch in their roost, casting a shadow that will forever fall over them. 

In the meantime, Muraki’s present milieu is something like that of post-war Japan itself: both are shadows of their previous selves, and laboring to adapt to an inhospitable world. Like Japan, Muraki is unsure of his path forward, but is painfully aware that all things can change in an instant. 

 

‘Out of the Past’: 13 Signs that Jane Greer is About to Destroy You

Jane Greer, 'Out of the Past' (1947). Dressed in mink and deadly.

Warnings abound,

but the only thing
Mitchum can sputter

is 'Baby, I don’t care'

Contains spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

‘Out of the Past’ (1947)

You can’t say that Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) had no way of knowing what he was in for. A shamus ought to be able to see things that a civilian would miss, even when he’s dazzled by the gorgeous and perfidious Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). How inevitable was it that love smitten Jeff would step off the edge of a cliff once he met this dame? If the sweet-talking Kathie were a  bottle of cologne her scent would be called “Eau de Damnation.”

Jeff is a former private detective who lives in a small town under an assumed name. We soon learn why he’s gone into hiding. Through a quirk of fate he’s forced to see his loathsome former boss, gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas), in Lake Tahoe. On his way there, Jeff spills the back story to his girlfriend Ann Miller (Virginia Huston), who comes along for the ride, and we see the story in a long flashback sequence. 

Three years before, Sterling hired Jeff to find his lady friend, Kathie, who’s been missing ever since she stole 40 large from him and left him with a bullet hole ventilating his gut. He survived, of course, and Jeff accepts the well paying gig. (Favorite line of dialogue: Jeff asks Sterling why he doesn’t send his henchman, Joe Stefanos (Paul Valentine), to find Kathie instead of him. Sterling replies, “Joe couldn’t find a prayer in the Bible.”)

 Jeff follows her trail to Acapulco, finds her and then falls for her. Instead of bringing her back to Sterling they begin an affair. 

Of course, it’s all going to go wrong for Jeff and pretty much everyone else connected to him and Kathie. It’s all because he ignored warning signs, some small, subtle, symbolic, even. Others are Jumbotron, skywriter, Fourth of July fireworks huge. 

See for yourself. Here’s a rundown of the warnings that Kathie Moffat is no Rebecca of Donnybrook Farm, and that Jeff ought to get the hell out of Dodge, pronto:

Greer, Mitchum. Out of the clear sunlight and into the shadows.

Her entrance: Jeff waits for her to show up at an Acapulco cantina, and like magic she does. The joint is a dark, cool respite from the blazing Mexican sunshine. Kathies steps inside, as if she were fated to cross that threshold and meet Jeff. As she does, we see her emerge from the brilliant daylight into the saloon’s darkened reaches. She’s at home in the shadows and her innocent appearance will prove deceptive. (Subtle, but telling.) 

A risky bet: Jeff and she meet up again a couple of nights later, and she takes him to a gambling joint where there’s lots of action around a roulette wheel. Is rendezvousing with her a gamble in itself? You bet. She’s a gangster’s on again, off again moll, and said gangster would take a dim view of their fraternizing. 

Greer, in front of a curtain of fishing nets.

Spider and the fly: When they finally have a nighttime canoodling session on the beach, fishing nets are draped all around them. Guess who’s going to get caught in her web. (There’s still time to run, Jeff.) 

Caution takes a holiday: They lay their cards on the table. She knows Jeff has been tasked with bringing her back to Sterling. She denies that she robbed the gambler. “Don’t you believe me?” she asks, her voice dripping with innocence. Love-stupid Jeff responds, “Baby, I don’t care.” (Spoken like a true fall guy.)

Acapulco after dark: Jeff, in voiceover, remarks that he never seems to see Kathie during the daytime, only at night. He doesn’t even know where she lives and won’t follow her to find out, as a detective might. (Hello? Possibly she’s living a double life of her own?)

Greer and Mitchum: Life's a gamble, but the house always wins.

The big question: As his relationship with Kathie and his entanglements with Sterling and other ne’er do wells grow heated, Jeff denies his gut instincts. But in voiceover he asks himself, “How big a chump can you come to be?” (If you have to ask … )

Kathie’s surprise: Jeff’s former partner in the detective business, Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie), who’s now working for Sterling, tries to blackmail Jeff and Kathie. He and Jeff get into a fistfight at a secluded cabin. Kathie’s on the sidelines taking it all in, and just as Jeff begins to take command of the fight she shoots Fisher dead. In cold blood. Jeff is in shock. Now there’s a gal you’d better keep an eye on.

Liar, liar ... : After the brawl comes to a bloody end, Jeff and Kathie decide to split up and chill out for a while. She takes off, then Jeff finds her bank book. Lo’ and behold, she’s got 40 big ones stashed in her account. Just the amount that Sterling accused her of stealing. She swore to Jeff she didn’t take the money. Could she have lied about it? The evidence keeps piling up, but lovestruck Jeff … (well, you know.)

Kirk Douglas, Greer, Mitchum together — awkward!

Back in the fold: The flashback is over and we’re back in the present. Jeff has told his story to his lady love. She drops him off at Sterling’s luxurious Tahoe home. It’s been a while since he and Kathie parted ways, but to his shock and dismay Jeff finds that Kathie’s back once again at chez Sterling and has rekindled her affair with the gambler. Jeff, about to sit down to breakfast on the terrace, suddenly loses his appetite. (Played for a chump again.) 

Guess who!: Jeff reluctantly accepts another assignment from Sterling. This time he’s supposed to grab incriminating documents that could put Sterling in prison. But something seems off. He senses that Sterling plans to frame him for a murder. Unexpectedly, Jeff bumps into (who else?) Kathie. Clearly, she’s knee deep in the whole sordid affair. She says that she and Jeff can start over again as a couple. Despite her traitorous behavior, he seems to buy her story. (Oh, Jeff, what can we say?)

The Affidavit: Kathie claims that Sterling forced her to sign an affidavit that pins two murders on Jeff. She’s really on Jeff’s side, she assures him, it’s just that Sterling has forced her to cooperate with him. (Yeah, right.)

Greer, Paul Valentine. The ole double cross.

Another double cross: Kathie directs henchman Joe Stefanos to follow Jeff back to the town where he resides and kill him. (This one’s hard for Jeff to rationalize). But things don’t go as planned and Jeff cheats a close call with the reaper. 

The truth comes out: Jeff discovers that Kathie has killed Sterling. She tells Jeff that he can run away with her or take the rap for three murders, each of which she either committed or had a hand in. She sums up their made-in-hell relationship: “You’re no good and neither am I. That’s why we deserve each other.”
Jeff might beg to differ, but rather than debate the matter he secretly dials the phone while she’s upstairs packing. They hop in a car and leave. Seeing a police roadblock ahead, Kathie realizes that Jeff dropped a dime on her and she shoots him, then fires at the police. A machine gun rakes the car with bullets, killing her.

On the road to doom.

It’s as if Jeff realizes that the only way to end Kathie’s reign of terror is by sacrificing himself. Earlier in the movie he mutters that he’s doesn’t mind dying, so long as he’s the last one to go. He almost made it, missing the mark by mere seconds. Fair enough. Sometimes being the next to last gets the job done all the same.

‘The Long Good Friday’: A Gangster Noir That Saw the Future

Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, "The Long Good Friday" (1980).

Mobster’s World

Blown to Bits

in an Easter

Wave of Terror


Contains spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

‘The Long Good Friday’ (1980)

As Good Friday approaches it’s fitting that we look at one of the slender number of crime films set on the holiest of Christian holy days. In filmdom, the connection between religious rites and acts of criminal savagery can be jarring (think of the baptism scene in “The Godfather”) and, by some viewers’ standards, just this side of blasphemous. But the marriage of the odious and the sacred often underlines the hypocrisy of those who tread on both sides of the fence.

In “The Long Good Friday,” which saw its U.S. debut 43 years ago this month, London crime kingpin Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) faces a disastrous Easter weekend as he watches his criminal empire disintegrate. A stubby, barrel chested Tasmanian devil of a man, Harold is about to launch a multi-billion dollar redevelopment plan. The project is designed to revitalize London’s then desolate Docklands property and fill his pockets with more cash than an East End geezer such as he could dream of. 

The idea is to remake himself into a legitimate businessman, more of less, with the help of some startup cash from the New York Mafia, a detail that casts doubt on his grand plans.

It’s 1979 and the Docklands and its surrounding area is depressed after the shipping industry moved on to larger, more suitable ports. With astonishing accuracy “The Long Good Friday” foretells the city’s future after the conservative government redeveloped the property into a sterile haven for the upper classes, a real-life outcome that would line up well with Harold’s planned cash grab.

Harold makes his pitch,
the Tower Bridge looms behind him.

We meet Harold after he touches down in a Concorde, returning from a secret mission in the States. He wastes no time getting down to business, entertaining guests on a cruise aboard his yacht on the Thames. Among the invited are corrupt cops and city officials as well as New York gangster Charlie (Eddie Constantine). With the zest, if not the eloquence, of an evangelical preacher, Harold pitches his scheme to rebuild part of the city in time for the upcoming Olympics (a London setting for the Olympic Games is purely fictional in this time frame). His goal, he says, is to make England a dominant European country again. As he speaks, he’s framed by the Tower Bridge which looms behind him, but as the craft glides onward the bridge recedes into the background and Harold stands alone, proclaiming his grand ideas and giving the impression that perhaps he’s grown too big for his britches. 

Hoskins, as the blustery, violent and highly temperamental Harold, is the very embodiment of a gangland boss. But his inflated sense of self importance, his arrogance and overconfidence are among his greatest weaknesses and are instrumental in his ultimate downfall. He’s a character who can only be matched is sheer hutzpah by Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello, another bullying fireplug who dominates the mob in “Little Caesar” (1931).

P.H. Moriarty, Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, Brian Hall

Keeping Harold anchored to terra firma is his girlfriend, Victoria (Helen Mirren), who, unlike Harold, the plain spoken ruffian, is educated and comes from a good middle class family. The role of Victoria was originally written as Harold’s bubble headed slice of arm candy, but Mirren fought with director John Mackenzie, insisting that the character take on a more consequential role in the story, and it’s a good thing that she did. Victoria is Harold’s guiding light, and later when she begins to lose her composure as Harold’s world crashes down around him, we know that things are bad. A side note: The world of mobsters is one that the actress knew first hand. In the scene aboard the yacht, some real gangsters were brought on as extras, and they were all familiar with Mirren’s uncle, who was himself a member of the London underworld. 

A bomb set off in a pub is meant for Harold.

Once Harold’s luck takes a turn for the worse, things come apart in rapid order. He hopes to dazzle the visiting money men, but inexplicably, bodies begin to drop and bombs detonate as he and Victoria try to make nice with the visiting Mafioso, hoping in vain that they won’t notice that something’s terribly wrong. But a bomb in the pub where he and the New York contingent plan to dine is proof positive that Harold’s plans are being swept away like beach stones in a tsunami. The bombings are a clue to who’s behind the mayhem — the story was pitched to producers as “terrorism meets gangsterism.” Incidentally, the pub that’s leveled in a bomb attack was merely a set, but must have been a convincing one because passersby popped in from time to time expecting to be served drinks.

Understandably, Harold’s at wit’s end and means to find out who’s liquidating his close associates and trying to wipe him off of the map. “I’ll have his carcass dripping blood by midnight,” he growls. 

An interrogation in the slaughterhouse.

In one of the film’s more visually arresting and grotesque scenes, he rounds up a band of his associates and dangles them upside down on hooks in an abattoir, hoping to scare the bejesus out of them and learn who’s betraying him (If these are his pals, we’d hate to see what he does with his enemies).

Conditions get worse still for one fellow who endures some stigmata body modifications on a warehouse floor, a scene reminiscent of a real-life incident perpetrated by notorious gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who lorded over London’s underworld in the 1960s. The film’s replication of that occurrence is a fitting if shocking development in this Easter tale beset by paranoia and blood letting.

Harold is continually one step behind his mysterious tormentors, but finally learns that, after a series of fumbled actions and misunderstandings, the IRA has put him in its crosshairs. Blinded by his arrogance, he opts to take an ill-advised path to sew up his problems, a drastic move that demonstrates Harold’s delusional thinking.

Although the film was completed in 1980 it wasn’t released in the U.K. until the following year and didn’t premiere in the U.S. until 1982. Britain’s ITC Entertainment originally backed the production, but got cold feet after seeing the final cut. The film’s political undertones and graphic violence prompted the firm to refuse the film a theatrical release. But Handmade Films, the company founded by former Beatle George Harrison, acquired the rights and agreed to distribute it. The delays, however, only served to build the public’s anticipation of its release and helped secure the film’s cult status.

For those curious about the real-life Docklands development project, which became Canary Wharf, the film predicted with surprising accuracy the project which didn’t begin until after “The Long Good Friday” was filmed. Unfortunately for many, much of the housing lost to the developer’s wrecking ball was replaced with high end living quarters and commercial buildings. Opinions on the project’s success are mixed, with some lauding the rejuvenation of the downtrodden docks, and many feeling that the working class was steamrolled over in this bid to create valuable properties and big profits.

While many of the Docklands denizens’ lives were adversely affected over time by the project, Harold’s world falls apart before his eyes, and in a most dramatic manner. As the film ends, he’s trapped in his fancy automobile, framed this time not by the magnificent Tower Bridge, but by the vehicle’s windshield, and he’s behind it, under glass, as it were. There’s no wiggle room for him to get away. Victoria is spirited away in another car and Harold, alone and vulnerable, is in the hands of one of his tormentors (Pierce Brosnan, in his first film role). There’s little else for him to do but ponder his past and try to work out how he ended up at this juncture. He’s been roused from his reverie and his dream may one day be realized, but by someone other than himself.