Jazz Mania: Film Noir, Bebop and the Devil’s Music

Elisha Cook Jr., 'Phantom Lady' (1944)

You might be surprised to learn that jazz didn’t show up in film noir right away even though by the 1940s swing was part of the popular music landscape and bebop was well on its way to becoming a solid American art form. But you wouldn’t know it by watching “The Maltese Falcon” and other early noir offerings. 

The fact is, initially at least, film noir producers didn’t seem to dig that style of freewheeling music. Typically, they played it safe, sticking with traditional orchestral arrangements instead of cool improvisational compositions played by hip bands and small combos. In short, when it came to music, Hollywood establishment cats were squares.

A couple of noir films finally presented a scene or two of jazz musicians doing their thing, but in both cases the music serves as a backdrop that fairly drips of sex, drugs, crime and madness — in other words, good, if overheated, material for a crime drama, but unflattering to the musical genre itself.

Ella Raines, Elisha Cook Jr., "Phantom Lady"

For openers, “Phantom Lady” (1944) offers a strange, mesmerizing view of an impromptu basement jam session. It may not have been jazz’s first appearance in noir, but it sticks in the memory. 

Based on the Cornell Woolrich novel of the same title, “Phantom Lady”  is a nightmarish odyssey that takes place over a single night. The story involves a woman’s hat, which becomes the object of an obsessive hunt that leads to run-ins with dangerous characters in shadowy corners of an unforgiving urban sprawl. 

Carol Richman (Ella Raines) crosses paths with Cliff (Elisha Cook Jr.), the drummer in a pit orchestra. They flirt and he brings her to an after hours jam session. Cliff sits in with the other musicians and the scene’s centerpiece is his drum solo, a performance that is a none-too-subtle expression of sexual  desire — Cliff is the one whose temperature rises to the boiling point, while Carol plays along in hope of getting vital information from him. 

He pounds out a frenzied solo on a trap set, his maniacal, leering expression, aimed at Carol, registers a 10 on the creep meter. Cliff later figures out that Carol has been leading him on and she splits before there’s any trouble, leaving Cliff to catch his breath and take a cold shower.

Then there’s the nightclub scene in “D.O.A.” (1949), which gives us a cartoonish rendition of both jazz and the kookie audience that grooves on the stuff. 

Frank Gerstle, Edmond O'Brien, 'D.O.A.' (1949)

Above all else, “D.O.A.” is a sobering, paranoid meditation on nuclear radiation’s deadly effects on the human race, and the pitfalls of self-absorption and hedonism. Small-town accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) comes to the big city and by chance meets a bunch of traveling salesmen and their lady companions who are all staying at his hotel. They persuade him to come to a bar and it turns out to be a hipster scene. 

Frank, a bit of a square, came to San Francisco to let his hair down before making up his mind whether or not to propose to his sweetheart back home. So he’s tantalized to check out this pre-beatnik era hangout for the bohemian set. He mingles with a lady at the bar and makes a date to meet her later that night. All the while a jazz combo is blowing up a storm on the bandstand. The excitement builds until the musicians and the crowd are in a frenzied state. The nightclub practically levitates as both the band and club patrons get caught up in the frenzied beat to the point of madness. 

The bartender, inured to the cacophony, shrugs it off. They’re “jive crazy," he says. "That means they go for this stuff.”

Frank doesn’t much understand the hipster crowd, but it looks like he’s gotten lucky, and that plus the booze are clouding his better judgment. He’s too distracted to pay much attention to the man slipping something into his drink. He takes a big sip of his tainted cocktail and things start to go sideways.

Swinging in San Francisco, 'D.O.A.'

Like the scene in “Phantom Lady,” an infectious rhythm dominates the action like a swift current carrying small crafts toward the edge of a waterfall. Both films seem to be saying that jazz is not only background music for bad behavior, it’s perhaps a catalyst for it. And while both scenes border on self parody, they are oddly striking, maybe even iconic. 

The action and cross-cutting is thrilling and mind-bending. The hyped-up, cartoonish performances may not be an accurate depiction of how real jazz is played — although, of the two, “Phantom Lady” comes closer to the real McCoy — but in each case the music becomes a powerful antagonistic force that tests the heroes’ mettle. Personally speaking, those are two gigs that I wouldn’t mind attending, martini in hand.

SIDEBAR:

In later years Hollywood got hip to modern music, and jazz held a more exalted position in noir. Here are a handful of memorable performances.

“Gilda” (1946). More of a big band performance than modern jazz, Rita Hayworth wows them with a smoldering rendition of  “Put the Blame on Mame.”

“Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), featuring a performance by the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

“Elevator to the Gallows” (1957), score by Miles Davis.

“I Want to Live” (1957), score by Johnny Mandel and Gerry Mulligan.

“Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959), score by John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet.  

I’d venture to guess that there are more that belong on the list. Which are your favorites?