Off the Hook: A bedridden heiress glimpses the face of doom in ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’

Barbara Stanwyck, ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ (1948). Crossed phone lines deliver chilling news to a woman stranded in her apartment.

Post war prosperity,

women’s position

in society go

under the microscope

Contains some spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ (1948)

Barbara Stanwyck plays Leona Stevenson, a woman distinctly different from cold blooded Phyllis Dietrichson, whom Stanwyck portrayed in “Double Indemnity” four years before. Leona is no femme fatale — she’s a femme in jeopardy. 

That alone ought to make us feel sympathy for her, but she’s hard to warm up to.

At first glance Leona is churlish, short tempered and demanding. But she’s also a bedridden invalid, apparently neglected by her businessman husband and left alone in a sprawling New York apartment. Her bedside phone is her lone companion.

One night telephone lines get crossed and she overhears a couple of mugs plotting a murder. It gradually dawns on her that someone's planning to make her the guest of honor at a deadly soiree.

Ann Richards as Sally Hunt. The film's flashbacks are channeled through phone calls.

She tries to tell the police, who take her for a crank, and as the night wears on her worries turn to panic, and finally, terror — Stanwyck’s transition from panic to terror is something to see.

Prosperity and women's place in society

That’s not to say that “Sorry, Wrong Number” is merely a nail-biter or a horror film. Beneath its thriller surface the film turns a gimlet eye on post war prosperity and women’s position in the society. In flashbacks, we get a fuller picture of what led up to Leona's terrifying night alone in her apartment as well as the mores of the times.

It’s the latter half of the 1940s and there’s a paucity of marital bliss among the folks we meet. By all appearances, affairs and marriages of convenience are rife in post-war America, where power, position and money are within reach, and joy is all but a distant memory.

Burt Lancaster and Stanwyck. Husbands order their downtrodden wives around like domestic servants, but that's not the case with Leona.

Here, most everyone is a bully or a victim. Husbands order their downtrodden wives around like domestic servants, while the breadwinner’s job is of paramount importance. Household management and child rearing are undervalued maintenance work that the little lady performs without complaint, or else. 

Henry is the poor son-in-law who’s been shunted off to the back office, pushing papers in dad-in-law’s mega firm, and he’s pissed.

Leona is the exception. When she strong-arms her husband, Henry (Burt Lancaster), into submission, we see how deeply dissatisfied he is with their materially comfortable, yet emotionally vacant life. Leona, the “cough drop queen,” is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, James Cotterell (Ed Begley), who heads a medical supply and pharmaceutical corporation. 

Henry is the poor son-in-law who’s been shunted to the back office, pushing papers in dad-in-law’s mega firm, and he’s pissed. But it’s precisely because of his vacuity and lack of ambition that he landed where he is. It's unusual to see Lancaster play the emotional and moral weakling, but he makes his journey from antihero to the pawn of evil men seem credible and tragic.

Lancaster as Henry, a willing prisoner of his father-in-law's fortune.

His type is frequently seen in noir — the unexceptional man who believes he deserves something better. But now, Henry, the seemingly dormant volcano of frustration, is ready to blow his top. Before long he makes foolish choices that put himself and others in harm’s way. 

As he’s making his furtive moves we can almost empathize with him, even if we can’t abide by his actions. His hands are tied, or so he believes, and there’s little chance of getting out of his predicament without taking drastic measures.

Flashbacks conveyed in phone conversations

Back in the present, Leona is prisoner in her bedroom, and only in flashbacks do we see her freed from the constrictions that have left her all but immobilized. The flashbacks, seen from various characters’ points of view and conveyed in phone conversations, reveal her backstory. 

Her mother died giving birth to her, and she was raised  by a well meaning but distant father. You might think that her frustration and pain as a bedridden adult are the source of her sour and demanding personality, but in flashback we see that she’s difficult even at her best.

Stanwyck, Lancaster, Richards. Leona steals her friend's beau at a dance.

She snubs a college friend, Sally Hunt (Ann Richards), whom Henry is courting, and brazenly steals him from her. Later, once they become an item, she browbeats her father into accepting Henry into the fold. 

The old man doesn’t believe Henry’s good son-in-law material, and it turns out he’s right. Henry isn’t really attracted to Leona, but an heiress is an heiress, and he adapts. Meanwhile, her dad is carousing with a lady young enough to be his daughter — no one’s perfect, you see. 

“Sorry, Wrong Number” favors dialog over movement, yet director Anatole Litvak maintains Hitchcock-like suspense and conjures up a persistent sense of dread about Leona’s fate.

While the most tense and dramatic parts of the story take place in the present, in Leona’s opulent room, flashbacks give us breathing space, taking the action (not that there’s a lot of it) out of the confined bedroom and placing it in the outside world. 

Because it was adapted from a radio drama, “Sorry, Wrong Number” favors dialog over movement, yet director Anatole Litvak maintains Hitchcock-like suspense and conjures up a persistent sense of dread about Leona’s fate. Although she’s difficult and a bottomless pit of need, we stay sympathetic with her as the present threat against her grows. 

But a devastating revelation, seen in flashback, alters our view of the stricken heiress, from pitiful to pathetic with a wisp of malevolence thrown in for good measure. (I’ll avoid spoilers here). 

Harold Vermilyea, Lancaster. Henry's impulses lead him down a less righteous path.

The stunner brings a sea change to Henry’s outlook on his relationship with his wife. The dam breaks, and the years of frustration and rage he’s been holding back begin to rush to the surface. 

He makes unsavory, foolish choices, as noir antiheroes do, morphing from beleaguered trophy husband to unwitting villain, and realizing that his underhanded actions have gotten him in over his head. 

With friends like these ...

His new friends are gangsters and when they try to squeeze money out of him he caves in to their pressure. But what happens next is yet an added layer of irony that he couldn’t see coming, and it makes the story all the more tragic.

 Leona is scheduled to receive an uninvited visitor at 11:15 p.m. and like the grim reaper himself he will work efficiently and leave little trace of his clandestine operations. As the clock runs down, Leona can only hope for a visit from a hero who will save her from this fate. But in her world, heroes are in short supply.

‘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 Big Knockoff: 14 Films With Armored Car Heists

Burt Lancaster, Tom Pedi, “Criss Cross” (1949).

Rolling bank vaults

a favored target

of daring hijackers

By Paul Parcellin 

If the movies are any indication, the 1940s and ’50s, especially the ’50s, must have been the golden age of armored car robberies — they were getting knocked over like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery.

A common armored car robbery movie plot: Ex-con, recently paroled, finds a crummy job. Meets a girl. Wants to impress the girl. Gets hungry for a big score. Joins a gang with a big scheme to tip over an armored vehicle. Risks life in prison or death (but what the hell). By showtime no one in the gang trusts anyone else in the gang. Ex-con doesn’t even trust the girl. The robbery goes down. Things go badly.

It’s fun just to see a complex heist plotted out in the low-tech middle of the last century. No closed circuit video, no satellite tracking devices, no cell phones — almost like robbing a stagecoach. Yet lawmen always seem to bust up those carefully laid plans.

With that in mind, here are 14 films from the days when we had a bumper crop of armored car robberies, at least in the movies:

Paul Fix, David Oliver, Irving Pichel, Robert Wilcox, “Armored Car.”

“Armored Car” (1937) 

Police Detective Larry Wills (Robert Wilcox), eager to prove himself, takes an assignment to infiltrate a gang that specializes in violent armored car robberies. The gang appears to have inside information and it might be coming from someone working for the armored car company. Likewise, gangster Tony Ballard (Cesar Romero), who sets up the robberies, begins to suspect there’s a mole in his crew.

George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, “Invisible Stripes.”

“Invisible Stripes” (1939)

Cliff Taylor (George Raft), gets out of prison and is determined to go straight, but finding work proves tough. His younger brother, Tim (William Holden), is in a dead-end job facing financial pressures. Cliff veers back into the dark side, reconnecting with his old associate Charles Martin (Humphrey Bogart), who is set to rob an armored car carrying payroll money. Cliff wants to give Tim enough cash to help keep him out of crime. But his good intentions end up backfiring. 

Humphrey Bogart, Chick Chandler, “The Big Shot.”

“The Big Shot” (1942)

Ex-con Duke Berne (Humphrey Bogart) wants to go straight, but then he reunites with old flame Lorna (Irene Manning) now married to shady attorney Martin Fleming (Stanley Ridges). She wants Duke to help her escape her loveless marriage. Martin uses his legal front to run a criminal enterprise and recruits Duke to take part in an armored car robbery. Duke resists, but caves in to protect Lorna.

Yvonne De Carlo, Burt Lancaster, “Criss Cross.”

“Criss Cross” (1949)

Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) rekindles his relationship with his ex- Anna (Yvonne De Carlo) but she’s married to gangster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). Slim finds Steve with Anna, and thinking fast, Steve tells Slim he came to propose a heist. The plan is to rob the armored car that Steve helps guard. Staging the robbery with Slim also allows him to stay close to Anna. But the holdup spins out of control and betrayal and double crosses doom Steve and Anna to a tragic end.


Armored Car Robbery

“Armored Car Robbery” (1950) 


Criminal mastermind Dave Purvis (William Talman) organizes a gang to rip off an armored car outside a Los Angeles stadium. When the heist goes down a policeman is shot and killed. Det. Lt. Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw) vows to bring the killers to justice. Purvis tries to double cross his gang and escape alone with the cash, but Cordell’s dogged police work leads to a final showdown. The film’s semi-documentary style, it’s tight 67-minute runtime and its focus on police procedure and criminal psychology make it a standout among its peers.


Wally Cassell, Steve Cochran, Richard Egan, Edward Norris,
Robert Webber, “Highway 301.”

“Highway 301” (1950) 


George Legenza (Steve Cochran) and his gang operate across Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, committing a series of robberies and murders. They’re cold-blooded and efficient, leaving a trail of bodies behind as they evade law enforcement. The film’s most intense action centers on the gang’s attempted armored car robbery. Legenza plans it carefully. He predicts that it will be their biggest score yet


Richard Basehart, Marilyn Maxwell, “Outside the Wall.”

“Outside the Wall” (1950) 


Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart), paroled after serving time for manslaughter, is determined to go straight. He takes a job at a rural sanitarium and soon discovers that the facility is being used by a gang planning an armored car robbery. The criminal ring operates under the cover of legitimate medical care, and Larry slowly becomes entangled in their scheme, especially when he falls for a nurse (Marilyn Maxwell) who may not be as innocent as she seems.


Lawrence Tierney, Marjorie Riordan, “The Hoodlum.”

“The Hoodlum” (1951) 


Hardened criminal Vincent Lubeck (Lawrence Tierney) is out on parole after serving a sentence. His straight-arrow brother gives him a job at his gas station, but Vincent, bored with the job, takes an interest in the armored car that makes regular stops at the bank across the street. He sets up a heist, and as the robbery unfolds things spiral out of control. Betrayal and needless bloodshed doom the caper.


John Payne, Lee Van Cleef, “Kansas City Confidential.”

“Kansas City Confidential” (1952)


Tim Foster (Preston Foster), a masked mastermind, plans a precise armored car robbery. To keep identities secret and prevent betrayal, he recruits three criminals — each masked during the planning and unaware of the others’ identities. The heist is executed with military precision, netting over a million dollars. Meanwhile, Joe Rolfe (John Payne), an ex-con working as a florist delivery driver, is unwittingly caught in the aftermath.


Noble 'Kid' Chissell, Jack Daly, Douglas Kennedy, “The Big Chase.”

“The Big Chase” (1954)


Det. Sgt. Dave Welton (Jim Davis) has to put his wedding plans on ice when a tip-off warns that an armored car robbery is in the works. Two-bit hood Benny McBride (Lon Chaney Jr.) is knee-deep in the planned heist that is being set up by gang leader Gus Henshaw (Anthony Caruso). Benny, desperate for money to support his pregnant wife, gets in over his head with the hardened criminals.


Tony Curtis, George Nader, “Six Bridges to Cross.”

“Six Bridges to Cross” (1955)


Jerry Florea (Tony Curtis), unable to resist the lure of fast money, falls in with a Boston gang planning a massive armored car robbery. The scheme includes using the city’s bridges and escape routes to their advantage. A big cash payout is at stake in this tension-filled operation, and it comes off without a hitch. But as the police close in, loyalties are tested.


Max Showalter, “Indestructible Man.”

“Indestructible Man” (1956) 


Ruthless gangster Charles “Butcher” Benton (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a sentenced to “the big sleep” for an armored car robbery in which he killed several guards. After the execution, a mad scientist uses electrical treatments to bring him back from the dead. But the reanimated gangster has become an indestructible killing machine. That’s bad news for the mugs who double-crossed him.


“The Rebel Set” (1959) 


Struggling writer John Mapes (Don Sullivan), angry rebel Ray Miller (Richard Bakalyan) and poor little rich kid George Leland (Jerome Cowan) hang out at a beatnik coffeehouse run by Mr. Tucker (Edward Platt). Mr. Tucker ropes the beatnik trio into a scheme to rob an armored car aboard a passenger train. The gang manages to steal the money, but paranoia, betrayal and guilt rattle the operation.


Herman Boden, Jack Dodds, Mamie Van Doren, Marc Wilder,
“Guns, Girls and Gangsters.”

“Guns Girls and Gangsters” (1959)


Recently released con Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr) hatches a bold plan to knock over an armored car loaded with casino cash during the New Year’s Day money run. Chuck reconnects with his old flame, Vi Victor (Mamie Van Doren), who’s now involved with gangster Joe Darren (Lee Van Cleef). The robbery goes down, but all three players have their own private schemes in mind.

Cameron Prud'Homme, John McIntire, “Naked City, ” Episode, “Nickel Ride.”

Bonus: vintage TV


“Naked City”
Episode: “Nickel Ride” (1958) 

Detectives visit the aging captain of the Staten Island Ferry at the same time that armed robbers are executing a daring heist of an armored car traveling on the ferry.

‘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. 

When Gangsters Collide with the Dark Side: 65 Mobbed Up Films Noir

Jean Hagen, Sterling Hayden, "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950). 

In Noir, Racketeers

Aren't Like the Ones
In Your (Grand)Father's
Mob Pictures

By Paul Parcellin

Gangster films were already a cinematic staple when a new kind of crime film began to emerge in the early 1940s. Films noir captured the popular imagination for a couple of decades after World War II. While some of the post war films are about mobsters, they’re different in tone from 1930s gangster films. Warner Bros. gangster movies, the gold standard of the era between the world wars, are rags to riches tales about rough guys with machine guns blasting their way toward prosperity, a scenario that must have appealed to Depression era audiences.

James Cagney, Jean Harlow,
"The Public Enemy" (1931)

Noirs of the 1940s and ’50s that include gangsters distinguish themselves by leaning toward existential questions and characters’ internal conflicts. Gangsters of the 1930s are not complicated people. They know what they want — booze, broads and moolah — and they know how to get them. James Cagney never agonized over morality as a Prohibition era bootlegger. Ditto for Edward G. Robinson.
 

Noirs explore the blurred line between cops and criminals, sometimes with wrongly accused men on the run or in prison, and naive dupes lured into hornets' nests by seductive women and the promise of easy cash. Usually, they involve ordinary, relatable characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances. 

While gangster films are usually about syndicates of organized criminal enterprise, noir gang activities are often one-time operations, heists aimed at the big score, a last job sketched out by graying thieves eying retirement after a lifetime of criminal mischief. They’re about flawed people who want to lead more normal lives, as opposed to old time gang kingpins, who revel in the mobster lifestyle and lead excessive lives of tacky luxury.    

With that in mind, here are 65 noirs with gangsters, syndicate bosses and average, unassuming fall guys who stumble into the dark side (and gangster films with a noirish edge). It's not a complete list. Feel free to mention others that aren't included:

“Paper Bullets” (1941)

Dorothy Adams serves time on a bum rap and emerges from the joint a hardened criminal who rises to power in the local crime organization.

"Dangerous Mission” (1954) 

A police officer tries to shield a young lady who witnessed a mob killing. She splits from New York with a hitman in hot pursuit.  

“Hoodlum Empire” (1952)

After World War II, ex-mobster war hero Joe Gray goes straight, to the dismay of his New York mob boss uncle who's afraid that his nephew will testify against his outfit before a Grand Jury.

“A Bullet for Joey” (1955)

A police inspector discovers a plot to abduct a nuclear physicist. Mobsters, spies and a seductive blonde all play a role in the plot.

“Machine-Gun Kelly” (1958)

Public Enemy number one, George “Machine-Gun” Kelly, launches a crime wave in 1930s America.

“The Hoodlum” (1951)

Career criminal Vincent Lubeck is out of the slammer and on parole but he still organizes a tricky armored car robbery.

“Deported” (1950)

An American gangster sent back to his home country falls in love with a widowed countess.

“Johnny Rocco” (1958)

A gangster and police look for a gangster's son who witnessed a murder. The question is, who will find him first?

“Baby Face Nelson” (1957)

One of the most notorious gangsters of 1930's Chicago, George "Babyface" Nelson, earns his reputation by masterminding a number of brutal robberies.

“Forbidden” (1953)

Eddie Darrow, searching for a mobster's widow in Macao, gets wrapped up in a casino owner's business.

“Hell on Frisco Bay” (1955)

After five years in prison, ex-cop Steve Rollins is paroled and searches for the San Francisco mobsters who framed him for manslaughter.

“Thunder Road” (1958)

A Korean War veteran comes home to the mountains and takes over the family moonshining business. But gangsters want to muscle into his territory and the cops want to lock him up.

”Dillinger” (1945)

Notorious bank robber John Dillinger begins his life of crime as a petty thief, meets his future gang in prison and eventually masterminds a series of daring robberies.

“One Way Street” (1950)

After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico.

“The Naked Street” (1955)

A mobster springs a condemned murderer because the jailbird got his sister pregnant.

“The Gangster” (1947)

A cynical gangster who controls the Neptune Beach waterfront runs a numbers racket with the local soda shop owner. The police are in his pocket and the local hoods are on his payroll.

“Macao” (1952)

American Nick Cochran, living in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord.

“Tight Spot” (1955)

A female inmate is whisked out of prison and into a police-guarded hotel until the district attorney can convince her to testify against the mob.

“The Trap” (1959)

In a remote Californian desert town, a lawyer arranges for a wanted mobster to skip the country via a small airstrip, but the local sheriff and his deputy throw a wrench into the plan.

“Decoy” (1946)

A mortally-wounded female gangster recounts how she and her gang revived a killer executed in the gas chamber to try to find out where he buried a fortune in cash.

“The Racket” (1951)

Two honest New York cops try to stop a crime syndicate from moving into their precinct, while preventing a corrupt prosecutor from being made a judge.

“Desperate” (1947)

A young married couple flee the police and a gangster who’s out for revenge.

“Suddenly” (1954)

Three gangsters trap a family in their home as part of a plot to kill the president of the United States.

“711 Ocean Drive” (1950)

An electronics expert creates a gambling broadcast system for a crime boss, then takes over the operation when the boss is murdered.

“M” (1951)

In this American remake of the 1931 German thriller, both the police and the criminal underworld stalk a mysterious serial killer who preys on little girls.

“House of Bamboo” (1955)

Planted in a Tokyo crime syndicate, a U.S. Army Investigator probes the death of a fellow Army official. 

“Party Girl” (1958)

Atty. Tommy Farrell defends crooks. Vicki Gaye wants him to go straight, but mobster Rico Angelo disagrees.

“New York Confidential” (1955)

A top syndicate crime boss and his corrupt politicians make multi-million dollar deals and order murders until the vicious pattern finally catches up to them.

“The Glass Key” (1942)

A crooked politician finds himself accused of murder by a gangster whom he refused to help.

“His Kind of Woman” (1951)

A deported gangster's plan to re-enter the United States comes to a head at a Mexican resort, and gambler Dan Milner is stuck in the middle.

“The Street with No Name” (1948)

An FBI agent infiltrates a ruthless gang, but a mysterious informant funnels information to the hoodlums that puts his life at risk.

“Johnny Eager” (1941)

The step-daughter of a district attorney falls in love with a gangster on parole whom her father sent to prison.

“Border Incident” (1949)

Mexican and American federal agents tackle a vicious gang exploiting illegal farm workers in Southern California.

“The Damned Don't Cry” (1950)

A New York socialite climbs the ladder of success, man by man, until a life among rich gangsters gives her what she thought she always wanted.

“The Mob” (1951)

A policeman botches a murder case and is suspended from the force. It’s a ruse that allows him to go undercover and identify the mysterious crime boss of the New York waterfront.

“The Enforcer” (1951)

A crusading district attorney finally gets a chance to prosecute the organizer and boss of Murder Inc.

“The Big Combo” (1955)

A police lieutenant is ordered to stop investigating deadly crime boss for lack of hard evidence against the mobster. Instead, he seeks information by pursuing the mobster’s girlfriend.

“The Lineup” (1958)

A psychopathic gangster and his mentor retrieve heroin packages carried to the United States by unsuspecting overseas travelers.

“Criss Cross” (1949)

An armored truck driver and his ex-wife conspire with a gang that wants to rob his truck.

“High Sierra” (1941)

After being released from prison, a notorious thief is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.

“The Narrow Margin” (1952)

A woman planning to testify against the mob must be protected against potential assassins on the train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.

“Key Largo” (1948)

A drifter visits a hotel run by the family of a war buddy who was killed in action. A Chicago mobster and his gang have taken over the place.

“Force of Evil” (1948)

An unethical lawyer wants his older brother to become a partner with a big-time client in the numbers racket.

“The Big Heat” (1953)

Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.

“White Heat” (1949)

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.

“Don’t Touch the Loot” (“Touchez pas au grisbi”) (1954)

An aging, world-weary gangster is double-crossed and forced out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped and their stash of eight stolen gold bars is demanded as ransom.

“The Killers” (1946)

Hit men arrive in a small New Jersey town to kill an unresisting victim, and insurance investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.

“This Gun for Hire” (1942), 

When assassin Philip Raven shoots a blackmailer and his beautiful female companion dead, he is paid off in marked bills by his treasonous employer who is working with foreign spies.

“Nobody Lives Forever” (1946)

Ex-GI Nick Blake gets involved in a scheme to fleece a rich, young widow, but finds himself falling for her, much to the displeasure of his racketeer cohorts.

“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” (1950)

Starting with a violent prison break, clever, ruthless Ralph Cotter corrupts everyone around him.

“Night and the City” (1950)

A small-time grifter and nightclub tout takes advantage of some fortuitous circumstances and tries to become a big-time player as a wrestling promoter.

“The Asphalt Jungle” (1950)

A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.

“Bob le flambeur” (1956)

An aging gambler loses a pile of cash and decides to return to a life of crime, this time robbing a highly secure gambling casino.

“The Killing” (1956)

Career criminal Johnny Clay masterminds an audacious racetrack robbery committed in broad daylight with a packed house of spectators.

“Out of the Past” (1947)

A private eye hiding out in a small town is discovered by one of the last people he ever wanted to see again, and is sent on a mission to find a gangster’s runaway moll.

“Ride the Pink Horse” (1947)

Lucky Gagin arrives in a New Mexico border-town seeking revenge against mobster Frank Hugo. But FBI agent Bill Retz watches over Gagin and tries to keep him on the right side of the law.

“Kansas City Confidential” (1952)

An ex-con trying to go straight is framed for a million dollar armored car robbery and must go to Mexico to unmask the real crooks.

“He Ran All the Way” (1951)

A cop killer meets a young woman and he forces her family to hide him from police who are scouring the area to find him.

“The Big Sleep” (1946)

Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to get a spoiled heiress out of trouble with gamblers and blackmailers.

“Kiss Me Deadly” (1955)

Mike Hammer picks up a hitchhiker and is lured into a Cold War nightmare that centers around a briefcase full of hot nuclear soup.

“Brighton Rock” (1947)

Gang leader Pinkie Brown murders a news reporter then tries to cover up his crime. But the police, some witnesses and another gang all make his life rough.

“Lady Gangster” (1942)

A woman acting as a decoy in a bank robbery is arrested. But she grabs $40,000 of the loot from her accomplices before she's carted off to prison.

“The Crooked Way” (1949)

A war hero recovers from amnesia and is confronted by his criminal past, a stellar example of the ever popular amnesia noir films.

“The Chase” (1946)

A mobster's chauffeur gets involved with the boss's fearful wife, and (as you might expect) it turns into a nightmare.

“Highway 301” (1950)

A violent gang robs banks and murders anyone who might identify them.

Barber Aims to Be a Dry Cleaner, Blackmail, Murder and Suicide Result

Frances McDormand, Billy Bob Thornton, "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001).

 Why Did an Acclaimed

Coen Brothers Noir

Tank at the Box Office?

Contains Spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’ (2001)

Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is the kind of guy who can enter or leave a roomful of people without a single soul taking notice. He’s got a knack for blending into the background, barely leaving an impression with anyone who cares to chat or even glance in his direction. Potted plants make a bigger splash at a party than Ed.

On-screen, he utters few words, but in the film’s voice-over narration, which Ed delivers with a laconic edge of existential dread, he’s a blabbermouth, relatively speaking. His patter fills in the story’s blank spots as he offers wisps of gossip and terse assessments of the people in his life. In Billy Bob Thornton’s wonderfully restrained performance, Ed smokes and listens while others do the talking. 

It’s an intriguing if odd setup for a noir, for sure. Still, “The Man Who Wasn’t There” had a lot going for it, yet, audiences didn’t warm up to the film and the reasons for that are buried in the details. (More about that later).  

Ed cuts hair in his brother-in-law, Frank Raffo’s (Michael Badalucco) barbershop and barely pays attention as Frank yammers on incessantly about Canadian fur trappers, Russian A-bombs and the like. That Ed is chained to a motormouth of Frank’s intensity is a textbook example of what hell on earth might be like. It’s the core of the film’s darkly humorous undercurrent, where the line between comedy and tragedy is as thin as a straight razor’s honed edge.

Ed’s wife, Doris (Frances McDormand), has a drinking problem and is having an affair with her blowhard boss, Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini), who runs a local department store where Doris keeps the books. 

Ed and Doris live in a modest suburban bungalow in Santa Rosa, Calif., and in the voice-over he sums up his domestic life without a trace of enthusiasm: “The place was OK, I guess; it had an electric ice box, gas hearth and a garbage grinder built into the sink. You might say I had it made.”

Ed Crane plies his trade.

Ed is in many ways a puzzle: he doesn’t seem to mind Doris’s cavorting about town with a married man, in fact the Cranes host Big Dave and his missus, Ann (Katherine Borowitz), for a dinner party where it’s painfully obvious that Ed and Dave’s wife are cramping the adulterous pair’s style. For her part, Ann is as disconnected from her spouse as are Ed and Doris.

Despite his lethargy, a spark of ambition still smolders within Ed. He wants to do something with his life, but thus far the dark cloud hovering over his head keeps him from making a move. 

Jon Polito
as Creighton Tolliver

Things change one day when Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito), an out of town entrepreneur who’s sniffing around for startup money wanders in for a trim and pitches his scheme to open a dry cleaning shop. Ed takes an interest in Tolliver’s proposition, which at first seems like a ray of hope in Ed’s gloomy world. But the actions he takes will soon get him into hot water. 

He successfully blackmails Big Dave with anonymous threats to expose Dave’s affair with Doris, then hands the loot over to Tolliver, buying his way into the dry cleaning business. This is the stuff of a James M. Cain or Raymond Chandler novel, dripping with dramatic possibilities, including marital infidelity, icy indifference to murder and larger than life characters with a yen for quick cash. 

Overall, the critical reception was positive. Joel Coen won the Best Director award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. The BBC, the Guardian, the Austin Chronicle and the National Board of Review all named it one of the best films of the year. Roger Deakins was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Oscars. Yet upon its initial theatrical release, “The Man Who Wasn’t There” failed to catch on with the public. 

James Gandolfini, as Big Dave Brewster.

Despite its finely detailed channeling of 1940s noir, the film also includes some oddball elements. Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote produced and directed the film, were inspired by a grab bag of pop culture material: 1940s-‘50s films noirs, ’50s science fiction films with flying saucers and body snatchers and oddities such as personal hygiene and driver’s education films — perhaps noir traditionalists were put off by the mixing of genres.

Tony Shalhoub
as Freddie Riedenschneider

The idea for the barbershop setting evolved, in the Coens’ typically idiosyncratic manner, from a piece of set dressing used in their film “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994), a 1950s poster of men’s hairstyles, which is reflected in a witty montage of haircuts seen in the opening minutes.

But the film’s highest trump card is its authentically 1940s atmosphere, due in large part to Deakins’ classic noir lighting techniques, bathing the frame in inky black shadows while paying homage to iconic noir images, including: 

• “Phantom Lady” (1944): Ella Raines and Alan Curtis appear in near silhouette, a flood of sunlight to their backs visually isolates them in an otherworldly domain. Similarly, in “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Atty. Freddie Riedenschneider (Tony Shalhoub) is bathed in a beam of light filtering down through a skylight as he confers with Doris and Ed.
• “Scarlet Street” (1945): Milquetoast Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) gives Kitty March (Joan Bennett) a pedicure, much the way that Ed shaves Doris’s legs as she luxuriates in the bathtub. Both shots emphasize that the men are subservient to conniving women. 
•  “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946): Femme fatale Cora Smith (Lana Turner) and Frank Chambers (John Garfield), have a car wreck on a quiet country road, much like the crash that occurs near the end of “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Scarlett Johansson as Birdy, and Billy Bob Thornton as Ed Crane.

As is the case with  Frank Chambers in “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” Ed Crane’s life takes a significant turn when a female enters the picture. By chance, he meets Birdy Abundas (Scarlett Johansson), a high school student who plays Beethoven piano sonatas. On a whim, he decides to take her under his wing and help her establish a career as a concert pianist — whether she wants it or not. After much failure, he’s determined to have a success, but it’s a mentorship he’s uniquely unqualified to manage. Like a typically pushy stage dad pressuring a kid to step into the spotlight he means to do good. But down deep he wants the validation of public acclaim as well as the vicarious thrill of celebrity status. His delusional expectations, no doubt, include piles of money that his protege will rake in. 

They travel together to San Francisco where Birdy is to audition for a big shot piano instructor, which turns out to be a bust. As they return home, a confused Birdie, guilty over her failed audition, tries to give Ed some unwanted sexual gratification as he’s negotiating the turns of a country road, causing the car to wreck. The accident, almost a carbon copy of the one in “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” injures them both and dooms Ed.

Roger Deakins' classic noir lighting.

It isn’t until the film’s end, after two murders and a suicide, we begin to get the picture: Ed’s gloomy voice-over narration is a first-person article he’s writing for a men’s magazine as he marks time in a death row prison cell. He’s supposed to tell the readers how it feels to be awaiting execution. But it turns out they picked the wrong writer for the assignment. Ed delivers the bare facts only. He’d probably prefer to let someone else fuss over the tough stuff, like feelings. That’s not his strong suit. 

Audiences may have been put off by Ed's opaque motivations, many of which are open to speculation. We are left to wonder what dramatic turn in Ed’s life caused him to recede into the background and become a spectator, viewing the events of his life from a distance like a shy apparition, taking it all in and sending out little. The answer is likely buried so deeply that Ed himself doesn’t know, and that’s the way it will stay for eternity. 

Is "The Man Who Wasn't There" a film noir homage or is it satire? It's both, because you couldn't create such a smartly detailed satire without having an abiding love and admiration for the original material on which it is based. But you can take it either way. As Ed might say, it doesn't matter much to me.