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

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

By Paul Parcellin

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

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

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

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

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 There are lines of dialogue that have aged badly and certain references that are wildly out of date.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gets his drink on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Scrapped: The Original Opening Sequence of “Sunset Boulevard” was Even Stranger than the Final Cut, and Audiences had a Peculiar Reaction to It

Erich von Stroheim, William Holden, Gloria Swanson,
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950).

Test Audiences Were Stunned, Amused and Confused

Joe Gillis (Holden), a life cut short.

By Paul Parcellin 

At the start of "Sunset Boulevard," hapless screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) floats face-down in a swimming pool with several bullet holes punched into his torso. He’d been the long-term houseguest of deranged former silent screen siren Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) until, in a fit of grief and jealous rage, she used him for target practice.

She’d hired Gillis to polish a hopelessly disorganized screenplay written by and for the delusional Norma as a vehicle to reignite her long-dormant career. Of course, things didn’t work out that way. By the film’s end, we learn that Norma’s return to the klieg lights is on permanent hold and she’s about to be hauled off to a sanitarium. Meanwhile, cops are fishing Gillis out of the pool with pruning hooks. So much for Hollywood endings.

For those who’ve never seen the film, that’s hardly giving too much away. Almost everyone has at least heard of the gruesome setup that puts the story in motion. As the film opens, we see the police and a caravan of news reporters speeding down Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard toward the scene of the crime as daybreak washes over the City of Angels. Angelenos will immediately sense that this story is fictional – Sunset is all but traffic-free. Even in the early morning hours in 1950, that’s pure poppycock.

Norma Desmond (Swanson)
in a hysterical rage.

But the opening sequence that appears in the final cut wasn’t the first one that director Billy Wilder had in mind. Preview audiences viewed a quite different and even more bizarre opening, and their reaction was not the one Wilder anticipated. 

The sequence in question was quickly re-edited into the version we’re all familiar with. All that remains of the original are a few short clips without sound and some still photos. Consequently, few have ever seen the completed original opening and it appears that no one is sure if copies of the entire sequence still exist.

However, surviving script pages outline the remarkably strange introduction that ended up in the dust bin. It opens with shots of the coroner’s wagon speeding along the streets, delivering the earthly remains of Joe Gillis to the city morgue. 

The body is taken into the sterile facility, toe-tagged, and wheeled into a room temporarily housing other recently deceased unfortunates. But ethereal music fills the air and a strange glow emanates from beneath a bed sheet covering the cold, still dripping wet Gillis. Suddenly, he reanimates, as do his new roommates, who begin to chit-chat among themselves. 

Each has a tale of woe about the circumstances leading up to their demise – a truck crash here, an accidental drowning there. Gillis is a bit of a curiosity to the others due to his Hollywood connections and because he was murdered. So, he begins telling his story, and thus, narrating the rest of the movie from beyond the grave, or in this case, the slab.

Preview audiences in Evanston, Illinois, and Poughkeepsie and Great Neck, N.Y., laughed at the morgue sequence and were unsure whether the film was a comedy or drama.

Enroute to the city morgue.

After the opening credits, when the story moved down Sunset Boulevard and into the L.A. County Morgue, spectators were stunned. Years later Wilder recalled, “When the morgue label was tied on Mr. Holden’s toe, they started to scream with laughter. I walked out of the preview, very depressed.”

The revised cut shows the arrival of police and reporters. Next, we’re assaulted by a complex and eerie view of the corpse that appears to be filmed from the bottom of the pool. From our vantage point, we look up at Gillis and see his lifeless face. The cops are poolside, looking down at the dead man and they seem to be looking down at us, too, as we gaze upward from the depths of Gillis’s watery grave.

Getting that one shot took a good deal of work and planning. First, since there was no swimming pool at the location, Paramount had to dig one. After much experimentation, art director John Meehan set up the shot. At the bottom of a portable process tank, he placed an eight-by-six-foot dance rehearsal mirror.

 After sinking the tank to the bottom of the pool, he placed a muslin canopy behind the police and news photographers, which, shot in black and white, would mimic the dawn sky. With those elements in place, cinematographer John F. Seitz could light the scene effectively in a short time. The camera was set up alongside the pool and Seitz pointed it down at the mirror on the bottom of the tank and filmed Holden’s bobbing reflection. 

According to Meehan, the shot “turned out to be a simple, inexpensive way to get through-water or underwater shots” by removing the need to use expensive underwater equipment. Meehan noted that the water had to be well filtered for clarity and kept at a low temperature of about 40 degrees because at higher temperatures the natural gases that build up in water would cut down on light transmission.

It’s unclear, however, how long Holden, face down in the frigid water, had to keep his eyes open and how he managed to stave off hypothermia.

A grim end for Gillis.

Despite the efforts to smooth over the original segment’s jagged edges and tone down its comedic content, the revised opening still caused a stir. In Hollywood, Paramount arranged a private screening for the various studio heads and specially invited guests. 

While many were appreciative of the film, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer was incensed by the cheeky sendup of Tinsel Town. He allegedly shouted at Wilder, “You bastard! You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you.” The outraged movie mogul tried to buy the film so that he could bury it. Fortunately, he failed to do so.

Critical response was positive and box office receipts were good, making “Sunset Boulevard” an undisputed hit. But Gillis’s snappy, matter-of-fact voice-over narration, a sardonic mix of blunt fact, barely restrained venom, and self-deprecation didn’t sit well with all reviewers. 

Thomas M. Pryor wrote for The New York Times that the plot device of using the dead Joe Gillis as narrator was “completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder, but happily it does not interfere with the success of ‘Sunset Boulevard’.” Taking a more hostile tone, The New Yorker described the film as “a pretentious slice of Roquefort,” containing only “the germ of a good idea.”

According to Sam Staggs in his book Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard, no audience has seen the morgue sequence since 1949, although Wilder did save the footage.

When Sherry Lansing, head of Paramount, approached Wilder about including the deleted sequence as an addendum to the DVD version of “Sunset Boulevard,” he refused. Although Wilder sometimes claimed to hold the missing sequence, he told director Cameron Crowe, “I don’t know who has it now.”

This article was originally published in the Dec. 2023 issue of The Dark Pages. Check out The Dark Pages newsletter at: www.allthatnoir.com/newsletter/