Danger Lurks in the Seedy World of Film Noir Carnivals

Tyrone Power, 'Nightmare Alley' (1947)

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raveling carnivals are supposed to roll into town and deliver family entertainment — tacky, corny stuff that kids adore: amusements, games of skill, sideshow acts and cotton candy. They bring with them a whiff of nostalgia and remind oldsters of more innocent times. 

But in film noir, carnivals are seldom harmless fun. Peel back the layers and you’ll see that they’re about as wholesome as a floating craps game. 

In noir, carnivals invade small towns like Trojan horses filled with menace. Glittering magnets to humanity from all walks of life, they’re fly-by-night road shows festooned in cheap glitz that serve as shimmering arenas for con artists — Pied Pipers in baggy pants who herd the bumpkins in and make off with their wallets. 

Behind the scenes, they heartlessly exploit their downtrodden workers, promising bed and board in return for what amounts to indentured servitude, or worse. 

 Their atmosphere is intoxicating and disorienting. So, you can be excused for feeling light headed as you wander the carny midway. In noir, these playgrounds for the common folk can induce hallucinatory experiences in the unfortunates who are lured inside. 

What’s more, the surreal, hyper-stimulating atmosphere that permeates carnivals can incite average folks to act on their darker impulses with little thought of the consequences. There, a thrill-seeking public, drunk on adrenaline and hungry for rough action, morphs into a brutal mob. 

Noir carnivals remind us that our sense of security is tenuous — the simple enjoyment of mindless entertainment can be easily punctured when unseen dark forces are at work. At nighttime, the icy glow of light bulbs illuminating the midway throw the darker side of human existence into high relief. 

Carnivals come with an unsavory reputation and offer a near perfect backdrop for the three Ds: deceit, double-crossing and debauchery — cornerstones of film noir. 

If this sounds like your cup of tea, here is a short guide to a handful of film noir’s more notable carnival hellscapes that will help you maneuver through treacherous terrain. 

The primary focus here is feature films made during noir’s classic period, (roughly, the 1940s and ‘50s), and more recent neo noirs. So, cable series, such as HBO’s “Carnivale” (2003), as well as non-noir feature films, such as “Carny” (1980) are not included. 

A word of warning: Spoilers Abound, so you might want to skip over the parts about films you intend to see. 

“Panique” (1946) 

In post-World War II France, a woman is murdered and the eccentric and irascible Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon) is the perfect dupe for a frame-up by the real murderer, Alfred (Paul Bernard). Monsieur Hire, a taciturn and eccentric outsider, raises the local folks’ curiosity and disdain. 

'Panique,' Michel Simon

His every move is regarded with suspicion. When he requests extra bloody meat from the butcher, eyebrows are raised, and eventually his outré behavior fans the flames of public trepidation. 

Meanwhile, a carnival is in town, and Monsieur Hire takes a ride on, of all things, the bumper cars — an odd move for one who maintains a rather dignified and aloof distance from his neighbors. Others riding on the amusement cheerfully gang up against him and deliberately crash into his car. 

An undercurrent of anti-Semitism permeates the local populace, and this rather minor but unprovoked attack hints at things to come. Violence is in the air, and we see it in a rowdy crowd of town folk who are thrilled by a sideshow of women wrestlers. 

It’s not long before a frenzied mob at the carnival amasses with the intent of hunting down Monsieur Hire and administering mob justice. Meanwhile, the real killer rides a roller coaster as the police receive proof that Monsieur Hire was not guilty of the murder, and that the culprit and his accomplice have been right under their noses. 

The inspector tells the officer to let the culprits finish their ride on the amusement before arresting them. It’s their last moments of freedom among a community that has also taken part in the awful miscarriage of justice. 

In “Panique,” the carnival hasn’t brought evil to the community, but acts as a gathering place, perhaps even a catalyst, where prejudices and fear of outsiders results in harsh, unjust consequences for an innocent man. 

“Strangers on a Train” (1951) 

In “Strangers on a Train,” tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) wants to divorce his childish, mean and manipulative estranged wife, Miriam (Kasey Rogers). Miriam is hell-bent on milking Guy for all he’s worth. 

'Strangers on a Train'

We find Miriam, a still-married woman, allegedly pregnant with another man’s baby, who is leading a couple of younger guys around by their noses as they frolic at a carnival, where her self-centered antics are at full dudgeon — she’s got the two suckers running in circles trying to please her. 

When a handsome stranger, gazing from afar, catches her the eye, she’s thrilled. Unbeknownst to Miriam, the stranger is Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), a psychopath who by chance met Guy on a train and concocted a silly and terrifying scheme. He tailed Miriam and her two friends to the carnival and is intent on snuffing out her life. 

Earlier on, before crossing paths with Miriam, Bruno encounters a boy dressed in a cowboy outfit who pretends to shoot him with his toy six-shooter. In a comical moment, Bruno pops the boy’s balloon with his cigarette. Maybe Bruno’s intentions are less than sinister, we might wonder. But here, the director, Alfred Hitchcock, uses humor to lighten the mood, and perhaps dash our expectations, before Bruno gets down to his grim business. 

For a while, it’s a cat and mouse game between the two. Bruno hops aboard the carousel with his target and her two friends, as if pursuing her on horseback. The ride ends and the action moves to a dark island in the carnival’s tunnel of love. 

Miriam’s narcissism and vanity make her an easy target for the monstrous Bruno. Under the slightly surreal dazzle of carnival lights, we can picture her believing that in this land of make believe no harm can come to her. 

She and Bruno finally meet at a dark and remote corner where he’s been lying in wait. Miriam expects that a romantic tryst is in store, but in the film’s most horrifying scene, his powerful hands choke the life out of her. We watch the sequence play out in the reflection of her cat’s eyes glasses that have fallen to the ground in the scuffle. 

Word of the hideous crime spreads fast, but not quickly enough to prevent Bruno’s escape, and he flees the scene with impunity, having transformed a tranquil, family-friendly spot into the scene of a cold-blooded murder. 

The film’s dramatic climax takes place later, back at the carnival’s merry-go-round, where Guy and Bruno fight to the death amid of gaggle of terrified children. By a fluke, the carousel speeds up and spins out of control, sending the rotating platform careening off its axis and ending the battle. 

For a moment it feels like the entire planet has broken free of its orbit. The carousel, a children’s amusement, is transformed into a terrifying instrument of death — Mr. Hitchcock’s mischievous dark humor is at work here. He assures us that we’ll never again look at a seemingly innocent carousel quite the same way. 

“Nightmare Alley” (2021) 

The two "Nightmare Alley" films (1947 and 2021) are the gold standard of carnival noir. Both present horrifying views of carnival life in the depths of the Great Depression, however the more recent film will be the focus here. 

'Nightmare Alley' (2021)

Into this milieu strides Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a man with a sordid past. He’s looking for a place to hide out and he finds work at the traveling carnival, where the despicable owner, Clem (Willem Defoe), maintains an extensive display of deformed humans' remains floating in glass jars of preservative. 

Equally vile is his practice of seeking out alcoholics and drug addicts and feeding them opium-laced moonshine. The broken men are reduced to a sub-human existence in which they bite the heads off of live chickens for the savage delight of carnival gawkers, who, Clem theorizes, need someone to look down upon. 

Stan, having stolen the secrets to another performer's mind reading act, eventually leaves the carnival and sets out on the road with Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), the carny’s electrically charged sideshow performer — she is able to withstand large surges of electrical current that flash across her body like chain lightning. 

The pair make good as nightclub performers and phony spiritual mediums, conducting seances for well-heeled suckers. But their hocus-pocus act summonsing the spirit world eventually falls apart, and for Stanton, there’s nowhere else to go but back to the carnival, which is under different management. 

The new carnival owner offers Stan a place to stay, but he must start at the bottom, and Stan knows all too well what that means. He will be the geek, subsisting on opium-laced booze, and biting the heads off of chickens for the savage delight of sideshow audiences. He has at last descended into hell. 

“Ride the Pink Horse” (1947) 

Angry, vengeful Lucky Gagin (Robert Montgomery) arrives in a small New Mexico town during its annual fiesta with the intent of blackmailing mobster Frank Hugo (Fred Clark). 

'Ride the Pink Horse'

Gagin is disoriented and can’t settle in, until he meets Native American teenager Pila (Wanda Hendrix), and Pancho (Thomas Gomez), who operates a tio vivo (carousel). Gagin insults and ignores Pila, who inexplicably hovers near him like a guardian angel. 

The hotels are stuffed with crass, rich Americans who have come to experience the fiesta. Unable to book a room, Gagin accepts Pancho’s invitation to stay at his place. The accommodations are more rustic than Gagin anticipates, but still quite drunk from a night at the cantina, he crashes for the night beside the tio vivo, which becomes the central motif in the second part of the film. 

Its wooden horses travel in a circular motion like racetrack thoroughbreds, but never get anywhere — perhaps a metaphor for Gagin’s inner conflicts. He dreams of a better life, with money and status symbols, and the pink horse seems to represent his aspirations, but alas, his wishes prove futile. 

The tio vivo also serves as a refuge for Gagin when Pancho and Pila hide him in on the spinning amusement as gangsters pursue him. 

The flying horses of the tio vivo are a connection to more innocent times. The children who ride on the tio vivo are unspoiled by greed and the pursuit of status symbols, and we can imagine a time when Gagin was less enthralled with material gain. 

Conversely, Pancho’s belief that money is not an essential ingredient for a happy life — quite the opposite of Gagin’s view — begin to rub off on Gagin. The would-be blackmailer’s initial disdain for Native American and Mexican American cultures fades as he realizes that, unlike the crass, brutal gangsters who are like him, Pila and Pancho are the ones who have cared for and helped him. 

At the film's start, Gagin is an empty, weak man who berates Pila, telling her to fix her hair and clothes so that she’ll look “human.” But it’s the teenaged Pila who rescues him from peril, and through this experience Gagin is a bit humbled. He develops a touch of social grace and better manners — in other words, he’s becoming more human. 

“Ace in the Hole” (1951) — also known as “The Big Carnival” 

A man is trapped in a cave-in at the site of a former Native American settlement and a rescue operation is in progress. 

'Ace in the Hole'

Spectators gather, and some are eager to step in and make a quick buck. That includes disreputable tabloid newshound Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), who not only covers the story for his paper, but uses his influence to prolong the rescue operation so that he can continue to exploit this tragedy for all it’s worth. 

The story catches fire with the public, and droves of sightseers arrive on the scene. A carnival with a Ferris wheel soon follows, demonstrating that exploitation can infect the most sobering of events.

The trapped man, Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), whose life hangs by a thread, does his best to keep his sanity as the rescue operation drags on. Meanwhile, the spectators are all too ready to hunker down with popcorn and cotton candy and watch a tragedy unfold. 

Unlike other noir carnivals, this one doesn’t deliver unsavoriness to an innocent public, but instead arrives to entertain gawkers and thrill seekers who are drawn to the scene of a tragic event like iron filings to a magnet. The carnival is merely an outward expression of the spectators' callousness.

Carnival barkers exploit the tragedy for all it’s worth, and the audience stays riveted to the grotesque spectacle as it develops. The unsavoriness of the carnival atmosphere reflects the exploitive, opportunistic wrangling of Tatum, who uses the cave-in rescue for his yellow journalistic purposes. Images of families frolicking while a human life is at stake is particularly unsettling. 

“Ace in the Hole” is a meditation on the public’s unquenchable thirst for tragic exhibitions, and disregard for the cost in human lives that results from those calamities. 

As the story reaches it inevitable heartbreaking end, spectators turn and leave, the media circus rolls up its tent, and with no more profit to be had, the carnival barkers move on to greener pastures. 

“Lady from Shanghai” (1948) 

Irish sailor Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) gets mixed up with Elsa "Rosalie" Bannister (Rita Hayworth) and her older husband, Arthur (Everett Sloane), who begins to suspect that Michael and his wife are having an affair. 

'Lady From Shanghai'

Michael is a man of humble means — Arthur is a wealthy and arrogant attorney. He hires Michael to pilot his yacht, and before long, tension mounts as the trio embarks on a cruise. 

When one of Arthur’s associates is shot and killed, suspicion falls on Michael. He’s tried for a murder he didn’t commit, and at the trial, he gulps down a bottle of pills to create a diversion and escapes from the courtroom. 

He flees to nearby Chinatown and ducks into an auditorium where a theatrical production is in progress. He begins to feel groggy, but when the police enter he runs again, this time to a carnival. He enters a surrealistic funhouse that seems to reflect his perceptions altered by his adrenaline-fueled escape and the drugs coursing through his system. 

At last he comes upon a carnival’s house or mirrors, where Elsa has followed him. Arthur appears, and a shootout between the husband and wife ensues. The mind-bending multiple reflections of Elsa and Arthur, which seem to stretch into infinity, are shattered as they exchange gunfire, leaving a roomful of shattered glass and a couple of corpses. 

Like the the Bannisters' illusions and deceit, the house of mirrors is an apt location to draw the curtain on their tortured marriage. Finally, their lies and machinations are smashed into tiny pieces, and Michael walks away, free, at least for now. 

“Gun Crazy” (1950) 

There’s nothing quite like firearms to bring people together — or drive them apart. 

'Gun Crazy'

So, it’s no wonder that Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) and Bart Tare (John Dall) should meet cute at a sharpshooting sideshow. Laurie fires hot lead at targets for the audience’s enjoyment and her handiness with a Colt makes Bart light up — he’s a sharpshooter in his own wright, and there’s an immediate attraction between the two. 

The smitten Bart hops onstage to challenge the young Annie Oakley wannabe to a contest — there’s palpable magnetism between them and also a struggle for the upper hand. As the contest heat up, the shooting match looks a lot like foreplay. Bart wins and conquers the resistant Laurie, and it’s not long before they pair up and go on robbery and murder spree — as young lovers in noir do. 

For the “shootin’ iron” obsessed pair, life grows dull when firearms aren't part of the picture. With no wars to fight, no frontier territory to claim and defend, a young couple must set out and create their own adventures. 

In “Gun Crazy,” the carnival backdrop provides a tawdry environment for this ill-fated couple to find each other, flirt and embark on the off-center life to which they were destined. 

Who knows how many felonious partnerships may have sprouted in the apparently innocent environment of a carnival sideshow? Of course, when gunfire is a catalyst for romance, the smitten couple walk a path of near certain doom. 

“Man in the Dark” (1953) 

Unlucky Steve (Edmond O'Brien), a convicted felon, is released from prison after undergoing an experimental procedure that erases from his brain all criminal impulses — the side effect being permanent memory loss. 

'Man in the Dark'

Using beautiful blonde Peg (Audrey Totter) as bait, Steve's old cronies — Lefty (Ted de Corsia), Arnie (Horace McMahon) and Cookie (Nick Dennis) — kidnap the amnesiac ex-con and try to jog his memory to learn where he hid the stolen loot before he went to the pen. 

He manages to get away from the bad guys, and later dreams of visiting a carnival. In his apartment, he finds a slip of paper with a number scrawled on it, but the number doesn’t correspond to a post office box. 

On a whim, he and Peg go to the carnival that he saw in his dream. Pursued by the police and his criminal buddies, Steve hops on an amusement ride with the cops hot on his heels and firing shots in his direction.

In a revealing bit of montage, the scene cuts to an animatronic figure of a hefty lady guffawing, seeming to mock the fleeing fugitive. The crowded carnival, with it glimmering lights and the strange laughing puppet mirror Steve’s disoriented state of mind. He’s trying to make sense out of disjointed snippets of things he can remember while chaos and the threat of death surround him. 

The action comes to a head on the roller coaster, with Steve hopping off and fighting to the death atop the tracks. All the while he's been trying to spark his memory in hopes of finding the dough. 

He realizes that the scrap of paper is a parcel check room ticket, and  at last he strikes pay dirt. His mental confusion dissipates and he must choose whether or not to hand over the money to the authorities. 

With the prospect of starting anew, he returns the loot, hoping for a better life ahead. For Steve, the carnival is a test of his wits and brawn, a crime scene, and finally, a place of redemption — a rare phenomenon in noir. 

“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969) 

I know what you’re going to say: “They Shoot Horses ... ” is a film about a dance marathon, not a carnival. True, but both share similar themes of exploitation of the desperately impoverished who are abused for cheap entertainment. 

'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'

The public can feast on the dancers’ humiliation as they limp through the physically and psychologically punishing spectacle, hoping to win a cash prize. Most exit the contest after profound physical breakdowns. 

Much like carnival freaks, the dancers’ pain is on display, and it’s a distraction for Depression-era gawkers who can take comfort in knowing that others are much worse off than are they. 

It’s a game in which only one couple goes home with the cash. Among the hopeful vying for the big payout are Gloria Beatty (Jane Fonda) and Robert Syverton (Michael Sarrazin), who team up and withstand the tortuous demands of a contest that drags on for days. 

Somewhere along the way, the marathon barker, Rocky Gravo (Gig Young), tells the dancing couple that if they’re willing to marry before the audience of dance hall gawkers, a rich woman will pay them a bonus. Gloria refuses, and later they learn that the contest isn’t what it seems. 

Expenses deducted from any prize money they might win will leave them with virtually nothing. It’s the kind of raw deal that is typical of film noir. No matter what you do, or how hard you try to avoid the penitentiary or the gallows, fate will push you in the wrong direction. 

“They Shoot Horses” ends in tragedy, made all the more grotesque by the air of merriment surrounding the self-destructive pair. Callous spectators, unsympathetic to others’ pain, watch with passive amusement as lives disintegrate before their eyes — not unlike the Roman Coliseum. 

As a pair of victims collapse, the audience turns to view the next ugly spectacle that catches their eye. Regardless of the human wreckage it leaves in its wake, the show must go on.

Red Scare Noir: Communists on the Waterfront

Janis Carter, John Agar and Thomas Gomez in ‘The Woman on Pier 13’ (1949).

‘The Woman on Pier 13’ (1949)

When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, my first-grade teacher, Miss Berzetz, marched into the classroom and scared the bejesus out of us. To hear her tell it, this was the end of life as we knew it.

Soviet tanks would, no doubt, soon visit our small community to steamroll over our humble homes. Communists would appear and force us to leave school, perform menial labor and force us to speak Russian. At least, that’s what I got out of her overheated rant. 

I weighed the pluses and minuses of a communist dictatorship’s takeover versus life as a pupil in Miss Berzetz’s class. Which would be worse? It was a close call.

I was reminded of this tidbit of Cold War history while viewing “The Woman on Pier 13,” a film noir whose world view makes Miss Berzetz seem almost reasonable in comparison.

The story begins after World War II, when anti-communist sentiment rose to a fevered pitch in America, and Reds became the designated boogiemen du jour. The Korean War was on the horizon, Red-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy was warming up in the bullpen, and in this charged, somewhat surreal atmosphere we find “The Woman on Pier 13,” an overheated, hyperventilating example of America’s burgeoning terror of an enemy within. 

The film previewed in 1949 with the straightforward but unintentionally silly title, “I Married a Communist.” RKO Pictures changed it after test audiences gave the thumbs down. Even with its new title, “Pier 13” is every bit the melodramatic tabloidesque B-picture that the original title suggests. But it reveals a lot about the country’s mood in that most unsettling era.

Its over-the-top depiction of American communists as a highly organized force of scheming, ruthless conspirators who infiltrated our institutions is a time capsule of American hysteria in the shadow of the H-bomb.  

While the Soviet Union conducted its first successful atomic test in 1949, the film came together a bit too early to press the nuclear annihilation panic button. Instead, it envisions a conspiracy of homegrown communists driving a wedge between labor and shipping industry management. 

“Pier 13” uses the communist threat in place of more typical forces of evil we see in noir — organized crime, corrupt politicians, police on the take and the like. Vast, ruthless and operating in a shadowy netherworld, these dark forces honor a rigid code of conduct, and disregarding it can have fatal consequences. Once you’re in, there’s no turning back. Like other noir heavies, the communist threat neatly checks off all of these boxes.

Richard Rober, Thomas Gomez and Robert Ryan.

As the film opens we meet San Francisco shipping executive Brad Collins (Robert Ryan), once, a card-carrying commie who labored as a stevedore in New York during the Depression. Later, he changed his name — he used to be Frank Johnson — and fled to the West Coast. A communist no more, he fits comfortably within capitalist society. But, his apparent serenity belies a dark stain on his past that won’t wash off.

Brad’s ex-flame, Christine Norman (Janis Carter), who’s secretly working for communist cell leader Vanning (Thomas Gomez), shows up unexpectedly and causes tense moments with Brad and his new bride, Nan (Laraine Day). Their whirlwind romance and quick, impulsive marriage hints at a darker core beneath an apparently shiny veneer.

Christine’s arrival isn’t a coincidence, she’s helping to put the squeeze on Brad. The local communists hold evidence that could send him to the gas chamber, and they want Brad’s cooperation. Brad labored under the misconception that he’d made a clean break with his past, but Vanning reminds him that this is folly. To underline the point, sadistic henchman Bailey (William Talman), who cackles madly as he kills (as homicidal maniacs do), disposes of an FBI informant in a particularly gruesome manner as Brad is forced to watch.

The scheme is to pressure Brad to reject dock workers’ contract demands, a move that will sabotage labor negotiations and send the industry into a tail-spin. Communists lurking within the union will arise, take power and trample loyal American workers with jackbooted feet. 

Meanwhile, femme fatale Christine, shunned by Brad, seduces Brad’s brother-in-law, Don Lowry (John Agar), while spoon-feeding him poisonous communist doctrine. Trouble is, Christine actually falls for Don. Commie boss Vanning, disgusted with her lack of resolve, chides her for being so “emotional.” Soon, pressures from within and outside of Don and Christine’s tortured relationship have grave repercussions. 

Nan gets wind of Bailey’s involvement in this web of treachery, and in an effort to collect intelligence against the killer, befriends him at the fairground where he operates a shooting gallery concession. When he’s not committing mayhem and murder, the leeringly randy communist hitman teaches attractive young ladies to shoot, all the while pawing them like a grabby uncle at Thanksgiving. 

Nan is later kidnapped, and Brad faces off against Vanning and Bailey, a duel that results in a familiar noir trope, a chase through a darkened warehouse. 

While westerns stage cowboy shootouts in the mountains, prairies or the sun-bleached dirt streets of a cow town, noir protagonists and villains, typically city dwellers, often have their last stand in steel mills, warehouses, atop train trestles or on rain-drenched asphalt — standard locations in the unforgiving heart of an industrial wasteland, where a man with a gun stands alone and overcomes unsurmountable odds — or doesn’t.

Howard Hughes, who owned RKO at the time, probably had little to do with “Pier 13” development, but we can safely assume that the film’s not-so-subtle suggestion that trade unions are peppered with communists and anarchist would appeal to the business tycoon who would have no doubt preferred that organized labor be relegated to Siberia. 

Despite, or perhaps because of, its fairly hysterical tone, “The Woman on Pier 13” may have helped nudge 1940s America toward a dimmer view of trade unions, signaling the start of their long, slow decline. 

In hindsight, organized crime, corrupt politicians and trade union officials, as well as industrialists’ propaganda probably played a more significant role in undermining their effectiveness than did the exaggerated threat of the relatively small, rather ineffectual Communist Party of the United States of America. 

These days, “Pier 13” may seem like low comedy or self-parody — the current situation in the Ukraine aside — but it neatly maps out the hot-button issues still before us, including home-grown and foreign conspirators, infiltration of government institutions, shadow governments seeking to undermine our way of life, while dishing out hefty portions of paranoia-inducing melodrama. 

The film ends on an optimistic note while serving as a cautionary tale of what might befall us if we aren’t more vigilant. That probably soothed frayed nerves back in 1949, however I’m reasonably certain that, for its reassuring sentiments and contention that justice ultimately prevails, Miss Berzetz would be loathe to take solace in it. 

 

Is My Toaster Talking to Me? No, it’s just ‘Kimi’

I

s Steven Soderbergh’s tech thriller “Kimi” neo noir? Call it what you like, a crime thriller, perhaps, but the film, streaming on HBO Max, has undeniable links to neo-noirs of the past that focus on technology, how criminality can get wrapped up in it, and how tech’s persistent surveillance invades our privacy. Let’s call it “Paranoid Geek Noir.”

"Kimi" takes its time setting up the details, but once it gets underway all of the pieces begin to add up. David Koepp’s screenplay cleverly uses details that at first seem to be mere background information but turn out to be significant later on.

Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) is a tech worker whose job it is to listen to recordings of data streams from a voice-activated Internet device called Kimi, much like the real-life Alexa. She’s suffering the after effects of a violent trauma and is self-isolating in a Seattle loft — except when she has an occasional booty call from her man friend whose office is across the street from her home. 

Her work-at-home job is supposed to help improve Kimi’s accuracy by listening to users’ failed attempts at making the voice activated machine do what they want it to, and correcting the malfunctions. It seems like a thankless job, but she approaches it with enthusiasm.

Listening to one recording, she thinks she hears the sounds of a serious crime being committed. She pulls out some techy thingamajigs to filter out background noise and listens to a chilling conversation. 

It’s easy to assume that her suspicions are nothing more than a paranoia born from extended isolation. But as we later learn, this niche of the tech world proves itself even more evil and vicious than our worst fears of it.

When Angela is finally forced to leave the safety of her home, she makes her way down seemingly endless corridors and staircases whose walls feel like they’re closing in on her. Those of us with COVID cabin fever can no doubt sympathize.

“Kimi” echoes films that center on technology that unexpectedly captures crime evidence, such as “The Conversation,” “Blow-Up” and “Blow Out.” Like the protagonists in those film, Angela is met with bureaucratic resistance when she tries to come forward with troubling evidence. 

Her stressed out CEO boss, Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio), wants to sweep the matter under the rug, and the woman in charge of ethical matters in the company, Natalie Chowdhury (Rita Wilson), avoids reporting it to the authorities. Angela is puzzled at first, then quite rightfully terrified.

Kravitz’s isolated and highly capable Angela is bright, struggling to overcome her fears and impatient with others in the outside world. She’s as moody and angry as you’d expect of anyone in her emotional position. 

Despite her prickly manner we’re with her all the way as she struggles to escape the forces that will go to extreme measures to cover up damaging information. To say that she’s unprepared for the ordeal she’s about to face is a vast understatement. But against all odds, Angela uses her modest resources to rise to the seemingly impossible challenges she faces. 

The story comes to a breathless conclusion that ties up the loose ends, perhaps a little too neatly, and if you ignore some pretty big plot-dependent coincidences, it’s a worthwhile outing that wraps up in a tidy 90 minutes. 

A word of warning: As you view “Kimi” you might want to turn off some of your appliances. It might give them ideas.

'Nightmare Alley' 2021: Guillermo Del Toro's Noir Carnival of Horror

 

I should have known better than to smuggle a chicken burrito into the theater from the taqueria next door to it. Why, you ask? Let’s just say I bit into it at an unappetizing moment in the film. If you saw the original “Nightmare Alley” (1947) with Tyrone Power, or if you know what a carnival geek is, you’ll get the idea. Bummer.

But the good news is that “Nightmare Alley” (2021), the stunningly dark reincarnation of the original, is a black-hearted wonder. Although it’s usually a bad idea to remake a great old film, and the original was just that, director Guillermo del Toro gives it a new and, yes, darker life, closer to the novel on which it is based.

 

The film opens before the start of World War II — at one point a character remarks that the guy who looks like Charlie Chaplin just invaded Poland. The Depression is at full dudgeon and desperation hangs over the populace like a thick toxic cloud. 

In this dystopic world we encounter the amoral, tormented Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), whose life is a puzzle from the start. When we meet him, he’s committing a startlingly grim act, and only later do we learn the story behind it. He hightails it out of town and stumbles into a traveling carnival, where he’s offered temporary work, and so he mingles with the denizens of this underground culture in which it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done — lucky for Stan.

He wanders into the residence of fortune teller Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette), who, with Stan, cheats on her mate Pete (David Strathairn), but seems a kind-hearted soul compared with the vipers who populate the traveling carney. 

Detestable carney boss Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe) oversees a particularly grotesque carnival attraction, an assortment of glass jars that contain a virtual museum of deformities with remains floating in liquid preservatives. One, in particular, an infant with a protrusion through the forehead, whose mother died in childbirth, reappears on the screen from time to time, darkly implying painful details of Stan’s history. That this is a showpiece for the ogling masses casts a dark view indeed of the populace in the years leading up to the war.

With the worst of the Depression upon them, sideshow freaks are in great demand with a public who wants someone to look down on and feel superior to, Stan is told. We soon meet the most degraded sideshow performer, the geek, a tragically demented man who bites the heads off chickens for the audience’s savage amusement and is kept in a cage like an animal. 

When the geek escapes from captivity, Stan is ordered to help flush him out of the fun house where he’s likely holed up. The place is filled with monsters and other spooky things rendered in wood, cardboard and plaster of paris, a delightfully hellish landscape filled with playful menace. It may also serve as an ominous glimpse into Stan’s future. 

More ominous still, Zeena’s tarot cards predict Stan will face the opportunity to choose between a straight and narrow life and doom. When this comes to pass, we already know which path he’ll choose.

 

Stan meets Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), the carney’s electrically charged sideshow performer — she is able to withstand large surges of electrical current that flash across her body like a lightning storm. She’s a sweet girl who manages to stay removed from the sideshow ruffians thanks to the watchful eye of carney strongman Bruno (Ron Perlman), who keeps her out of harm’s way. Unfortunately for her, she comes to believe in Stan, much to Bruno’s dismay, and the two become an item.

Stan has ambitions to go on the road with the mentalist act he swipes from Zeena’s Pete, a good-hearted but weary tippler. Stan wants to go after well-heeled dupes who are ripe for the picking. The other carneys urge Stan to avoid doing a “spook show” — posing as a true mind-reader and spiritualist, which is a line that none of them will cross. But, Stan’s all too ready to hoodwink suckers with fatter wallets than the beaten-down masses who crowd the sideshows, so he and Molly leave the carney behind and eventually make the leap to the upscale nightclub circuit.

 

It’s not long before he connects with a slippery psychologist, Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a seductive shape-shifter who, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, is a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. They begin an affair of sorts, and she offers him the means to cash in on some wealthy dupes. He lands a promising but somewhat dangerous client, troubled millionaire Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins).

But, with every silver lining comes a dark cloud, and Stan is eventually in for a precipitous fall — this is noir, after all, and that's a prime convention of the genre.

Speaking of conventions, most traditional noirs were shot cheaply, which meant that color film was verboten. Del Toro wants to release a black and white version of his film. The muted tones of the color print are quietly effective, but it would be thrilling to see it in black in white. Let’s hope that happens.

As remakes go, “Nightmare Alley” more than holds its own with its many outstanding performances, even in the smaller roles, wonderful direction and taut script. What sets it apart from  standard Hollywood do-overs is its refusal to compromise. True to its noir roots, the film is an oddity today, minus an upbeat ending calculated to resonate with the masses, and that’s a good thing. The chilling conclusion is devastating. Be warned, if you’re hoping for even a glimmer of sunshine when emerging from this darkened house of horrors you may need whiskey — but hold the chicken burrito. 

 

Sopranos Ending Confirmed: Told Ya So!

“Sopranos” creator David Chase finally set the record straight about Tony Soprano’s fate in the series finale, “Made in America.” 
Not to toot my own horn, but it seems that Life and Death in L.A. had it right all along. 
Chase let slip a telling comment that confirms my theory, published here in 2012. The final scene of the dramatic series left the audience wondering what happened to New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano when the screen suddenly went black.
I felt that the unexpected blackout was a subtle way of showing that Tony was dead. Chase had never decisively stated whether or not Tony got whacked. But an interview quoted in the New York Post leaves little doubt. The crime boss who reigned supreme over North Jersey for six seasons that stretched out over eight years had finally met his demise.
The series ran on HBO, garnering more than 20 Emmy Awards and was widely acclaimed as one of the best television dramas of all time. James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano, the crime boss who struggled with family matters while running the Jersey mob, died in 2013. The series continues to stream on HBO. 

'The Silent Partner' : A Noir Bank Job, 1970s Style

Elliot Gould in 'The Silent Partner.'

Elliot Gould is Miles Cullen, a Toronto bank teller whose chief companions are tropical fish that flutter about in an aquarium in his cramped apartment. To his female co-workers, Miles is a teddy bear nerd with as much sex appeal as one of his guppies.

One day, he realizes that sinister acts are taking place in the mall where his bank is located. Something churns within him, and before long his ruminations bubble to the surface. He fusses over his chess board — the first clue that this drama will be a tactical battle of wits.

Frustrated in his dreams of winning the love of a beautiful woman, Julie (Susannah York), he takes an uncharacteristic step that could free him from his mundane life or lead to ruin  — pocketing a healthy chunk of the bank's funds after a hold-up man makes off with some of the cash drawer contents.

As ineffectual as he is with the opposite sex, Miles proves himself a surprisingly skilled criminal, although it becomes clear he has not considered all of the consequences of his actions.

Once the deed is done, a number of snags appear, including the reappearance of Reikle (Christopher Plummer), a sadistic criminal who is the diametric opposite of Miles. Further complicating the matter is Elaine (Céline Lomez), a femme fatale with murkey allegiances — as femmes fatale often have.

Along the way, Miles comes close to losing the purloined fortune he hopes will serve as an early retirement fund. In addition to keeping his hands on the cash, he must figure out how to rid himself of his nemesis, Reikle, who has made Miles his unwilling silent partner.

The screenplay, written by Curtis Hanson, who co-wrote and directed "L.A. Confidential," has a lean framework typical of neo noir. Scenes fit together nicely and project an understated authenticity. 

If one weakness must be singled out it's that "The Silent Partner" lacks noir's fatalistic outlook — the ending buttons up neatly and just misses greatness. See it anyway, because, unlike Julie's withering summation of Miles, its total is greater than the sum of its parts.

Infamous L.A. Crime Scenes ... and Where to Find Them

The Colt revolver found near Lana Clarkson’s body at the Alhambra crime scene.

Who doesn't like to reminisce now and then? Especially when it comes to heinous crimes committed in the City of Los Angeles. Like any large metropolitan region, L.A. has its share of dark moments. Crime in the City of Angels has been the stuff we've watched in hundreds if not thousands of movies and TV shows. The link between the city and the crimes that are perpetrated here stays burned into our collective memory long after the blood stains have been mopped up and the corpses removed to the city morgue.

Some may blame the year-round sunshine and dry desert air for driving the city's good people to distraction. Raymond Chandler said that the dusty, unforgiving winds can bring about madness and tragedy:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.” 

― Raymond Chandler, Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories 

If you'd like to review a bit of the city's past, try this handy guide, 'The Locations of L.A,'s Most Memorable Crimes by Neighborhood."

Did Bugsy’s Brainstorm Really Launch Vegas?

https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/mobster-bugsy-siegel-and-his-influence-on-hollywood-and-las-vegas.html

Who was really behind the creation of Las Vegas? The answer might surprise you.

When Works of Art Bewitch, Haunt ... and Judge

Detective Mark MacPherson is mesmerized by the portrait  of Laura Hunt. 

Noir anti-heroes often come from the wrong side of the tracks, and then struggle to brush off the dust from the old neighborhood. Lured by the trappings of the filthy rich — jewels, swell apartments, gorgeous babes — they cross the line into a saturnine world of deceit, plunder and sometimes murder, all in an ill-advised effort to reinvent themselves. And it usually ends badly.

One plaything of the well-heeled seen often in film noir is the painted portrait, a symbol of power and wealth, and sometimes the keystone of the noir drama’s plot. Portraits of women frequently turn up, sometimes echoing a character's desire to isolate and possess the sitter. Other times the subject of a painting seems to lord over a room, casting judgment on those who behold the artwork. 

In Otto Preminger’s “Laura” (1944), police Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrew) falls in love with the eponymous murder victim, Laura Hunt (Jean Tierney), whose portrait hangs over her living room mantelpiece. His frequent visits to the scene of the crime, the dead girl’s apartment, are part of his investigation, so he says. 

But while there, he compulsively sifts through her possessions, listens to her favorite recordings of romantic music and moons over the portrait. All the while Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), a poison-tongued gossip columnist, chides the detective about “falling in love with a corpse.”

But the alluring portrait of the murdered woman has an unmistakable attraction for MacPherson, and the artwork is as much a character in the story as any of the living cast members. It also helps set the stage for a dramatic plot twist that comes halfway through the film. Under Laura's spell, MacPherson is suddenly snapped awake from his reverie as the story takes its unexpected turn. 

Gene Tierney, in 'Whirlpool'

In another Preminger noir, “Whirlpool” (1950), Anne Sutton (Jean Tierney, again), a psychiatrist’s wife, suffers from kleptomania and is hypnotized to treat her condition. Those around her consider her grasp of reality shaky at best.

Echoing “Laura,” a portrait of a deceased woman plays an outsized role in the film. Anne is blamed for the woman’s death, and the portrait, again, hung over the living room mantelpiece, seems to haunt the victim’s former residence — the piercing eyes of justice looking down on Anne, judging her and ready to pass sentence.

Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson,  
'The Woman in the Window.'

In Fritz Lang’s “The Woman in the Window,” Prof. Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), a beloved university educator, lectures his students about ethical principles. One night, he finds himself in a quandary that throws his life into turmoil and causes him to question his own principles.

His burgeoning problems begin after he spies a painting of a beautiful woman on display in a gallery’s front window. The story takes a magical turn when the woman in the painting suddenly appears on the sidewalk next to him. 

The heralded professor eventually lands in the middle of a spiraling set of circumstances that threaten to envelop him like quicksand. For Wanley, the woman of his dreams, who seems to materialize out of the painting, is a siren lying in wait, ready to take possession of him.

Edward G. Robinson in ' Scarlet Street'

Likewise, in "Scarlet Street" (1945), Edward G. Robinson plays amateur artist Christopher "Chris" Cross, who gets mixed up with tawdry characters Katherine 'Kitty' March (Joan Bennett) and Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea) who exploit his creative talents. 

Kitty takes credit for Chris's paintings after an art critic gives the works a rave review. Chris, the meek artist, is unable to convince the world that he created the masterworks that are selling for large sums.

Paintings used in these films, however, aren't likely to command whopping prices at auction. In fact, some are hardly paintings at all. The portrait of Laura Hunt, for instance, was actually a varnished photograph of actress Jean Tierney, who played the ill-fated title character. 

Then, there's a downright silly example of art appearing in noir. A portrait, supposedly by Renaissance master Raphael, appears in "The Dark Corner" (1946) (also starring Clifton Webb). It's a left-handed imitation of the artist's work that wouldn't fool a child.

So, let's just call them what they are — movie props that tell a story of their own. They're not great works of art, but part of larger creative works — the films they appear in — that oftentimes achieve greatness in their own wright.

A Simple Plot is the Backdrop for Murder

Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Robert Phillips, Seymour Cassel and Morgan Woodward.

Sometimes, your favorite films play tricks on you. You carry around a memory of the plot, atmosphere and pacing, but later you find that your recollection was all wrong.
That happened to me recently when I saw John Cassavete's 1976 film,"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie."
It was the first time I'd watched it in a number of years, and I'd remembered it as a densely plotted crime thriller, full of atmosphere and peppered throughout with odd, interesting characters.
I got the parts about the characters and atmosphere right, but the plot was not as dense as I thought. It was about as simple as a storyline can be.
Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara), runs a sleazy cabaret on Sunset. He loses big money gambling and agrees to kill a mob figure to pay off his debt. He carries out the hit, and is double-crossed by the gangsters who put him up to the crime.

Mr. Sophistication (Meade Roberts)

The story's main attraction is Cosmo, who is an oddity in the sleaze trade. He writes and directs the low-brow skits staged at the club, and he firmly believes in their artistic quality. His dedication to his work is taken to ridiculous extremes. Even when he's running for his life, he can't help but phone in to the club to check on the performers and give them directions.
As an inveterate gambler, he risks all and commits murder to save himself, but also to keep his little theater troupe active. You might say that Cosmo is a stand-in for independent film producers, a la Cassavetes. It takes a gambler with unconquerable dedication to his craft to make films like his. We can only hope that his struggle never involved a contract killing.

'Noir' or 'Noirs'? Someone Has to Put His Foot Down

Don't ever say 'film noirs' to me again, baby!

No matter what they're supposed to be ranking, top 20 lists usually leave out some of the best of the best.
But that's the nature of the beast.
There's no such thing as a top 20 list that actually picks the best of anything. That's the fun of reading the things.
You can look at the list and pick apart each one of the selection. You'll say, "Uh-huh, they got that one right." Or, "What morons! They actually chose that?!"
Then there's the case of the U.K. Independent's "The art of darkness: the top 20 film noirs."
Love the films they chose.
Hate the title.
The plural of film noir is "films noir," not "film noirs." Notice the placement of the "s."
However, in my humble opinion, it's OK to refer to the genre as a whole as "noirs."
Americans and European expatriates in America originated the genre, but the French identified and named it. Let's not obscure that fact with a sloppy translation of the name.

What the Devil is Film Noir, and Who Named It?

A scene from 'The Crimson Kimono,'  a 1959 thriller directed by Samuel Fuller.

I'm a little late in posting a link to the great 2014 New Yorker article by Richard Brody, "Film Noir: The Elusive Genre."
It's a smart discussion about what exactly makes a movie a noir. I won't be spoiling anything by saying that it's hard to really pin it down.
There are all kinds of crime films that you'll recognize, including gangster pictures, heist films, movies with kidnapping plots and murder mysteries. But film noir is defined not so much by the kind of criminals involved or the sort of crime that gets committed.
So what makes it noir?
It's the characters involved and the kinds of conflicts that they face.
Check out the article. It's a fairly short read, by New Yorker standards, anyway. And as always for that magazine, the writing is tops.
If the above link doesn't work, click this link.

FEARSOME 15: Movie Gangsters to Watch Out For

In the movies, henchmen climb to the top of the crime heap by using bombs, bullets and intimidation. Of course, being a terrifying SOB isn’t just a job security tactic – any mobster who’s not feared will often end up as landfill.

The range of badass criminal types runs the gamut:
There are those who are so twisted, rotten and vicious that they make other tough guys lose control of their bodily functions.

 
And there are those who at first glance seem like fairly normal human beings. But when someone crosses them it brings out their inner hatchet murderer. Tempers flare, hateful words are exchanged and pretty soon the badass is up to his ankles in someone else’s blood.

 
Then, there are the ones who get tagged as vicious criminals and are feared by the police and other criminals, too, but they’re not as bad as their reputations would have you believe – or so they claim.
With that in mind, here are some gangsters, thugs and killers who can rightly claim the “badass” moniker:


1. Roy "Mad Dog" Earle (Humphrey Bogart) “High Sierra”

You might admire or fear any gangster who earns the title “Mad Dog.” As a rule, cops and criminals alike approach “Mad Dogs” with great caution, and that’s probably a good idea.

Roy “Mad Dog” Earle, the Indiana bank robber, is released from prison. And after years spent behind bars he wants to get outdoors, out of the darkness and into the sunlight. He even adopts a stray dog, and treats the pooch with kindness.

But Roy is not planning to abandon his life of crime. “High Sierra” is a heist picture, and like any good gangster film, it gives us some insight into the protagonist’s character.
Roy is recruited to take part in a jewel robbery, and while on his way to join the others in the gang, he meets Velma (Joan Leslie), a young woman hobbled with a clubfoot. Roy is smitten with her and pays for her corrective surgery, but she’s got a fiancé and Roy’s hopes of marrying her are dashed. Instead, he takes up with Marie (Ida Lupino).

Roy and the gang rob a swanky Palm Springs resort, but the robbery goes disastrously wrong. Roy escapes, but one of the gang is captured and sings to the police. Roy runs for the mountains with Marie, but they soon split up so she can make a getaway.

 
An all-points bulletin is posted, calling Roy “Mad Dog Earle.” It’s the news media that hangs that tag on him. Roy is cornered and a standoff with the law ensues. A media circus forms around the mountainous site where he’s is hiding out.

Roy has finally made it to the great outdoors, just as he’d dreamed, but the alpine setting holds him prisoner just as surely as the bars and concrete of the penitentiary once did. For Roy, there is no freedom.

2. Tom Powers (James Cagney) “The Public Enemy”

In “The Public Enemy,” young Tom Powers and his pal Matt Doyle commit petty thefts and sell the stuff they steal to adult gangster Putty Nose. In later years, Putty Nose gets them to help burglarize a fur store. Tom and Matt gun down a police officer who is chasing them as they attempt to make a getaway. They go to Putty Nose for help but he leaves them in the lurch.

 
Years later, they accidentally run across their former Fagin-like mentor. Putty Nose pleads for his life and plays an old favorite tune on the piano to try to get the boys to let him off the hook for old time’s sake. But Tom is not in a forgiving mood, and he shoots Putty Nose in the back.

 
Like many movie gangsters, Tom starts out with high ambitions. But he finds that his success in the bootlegging business means leading an increasingly violent life. His trigger-happy ways rise to an absurd level when his buddy, Samuel "Nails" Nathan, is killed in a horseback riding accident. Tom hunts down the horse and shoots it.

 
When his war hero brother Mike (Donald Cook) bitterly criticizes the violent life he leads, Tom sets the record straight. “Your hands ain't so clean,” he says. “You killed and liked it. You didn't get them medals for holding hands with them Germans.”

 
In another famous scene, Tom cements his bad boy image when he grinds a grapefruit half into his complaining girlfriend’s kisser.

When Tom’s bootlegging operation begins to fall apart, rivals see their opportunity to take over, and a gang war begins. This pre-code drama sticks with the standard message of that era’s gangster films: In the end, the bad guy pays for his crimes.

3. Tony Montana (Al Pacino) “Scarface”

In “Scarface,” Tony Montana starts out as a feisty upstart bent on success and turns into a hardened criminal, his face buried in a pile of cocaine. But consider the company he keeps, including one desperado who gives super-close haircuts with a chainsaw. 

In his first meeting with a Columbian drug cartel leader, Tony narrowly escapes death, but his associate, all-around bad guy Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham), is not so lucky – he’s forced to do some skydiving out of a helicopter with no parachute.

Like the drug trade people he’s chosen to deal with, Tony transforms into a cold-blooded killer. But he’s not without his redeeming qualities. Ordered to kill a journalist who is bringing heat down on a drug lord’s cartel, Tony agrees to the assignment to appease the cocaine supplier. But he finds that it won’t be the clean hit he was expecting – innocent people will also be killed. He abandons the plan even though it means facing difficult and dangerous consequences.

Tony’s situation goes from bad to worse, until his private lair is under siege from troops of invaders dispatched by the drug lord he has angered.

When the final showdown between him and his cocaine supplier’s army goes down, Tony is armed with a grenade-launcher-equipped M-16. Predictably, the resulting carnage and destruction marks the end of the Tony Montana drug empire.

4. Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) “Little Caesar”

In the opening scene of “Little Caesar,” Rico Bandello sticks up a gas station and murders the attendant in cold blood – shocking in 1931, especially when it’s done by the leading man of a Hollywood feature film.

Rico joins forces with gangster Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields) and proceeds to intimidate Vettori and his band of feckless hoodlums. When Rico bullies his longtime pal and reluctant cohort Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to rob the nightclub where Massara works, he gives in, but the heist goes wrong. Rico guns down crime commissioner Alvin McClure, an anti-mob crusader, who happens to be at the scene.

Crime boss Vettori is beside himself when he learns that Rico violated his no-bloodshed rule. Rico tells Sam he’s gotten soft, and he proceeds to take control of Sam’s gang.

 
Rival gang leader "Little Arnie" Lorch (Maurice Black) aims to get rid of Rico. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Lorch’s men spray the sidewalk with machine gun bullets that only graze Rico and smash crockery in a storefront window. 

Rico, being the crazed killer that he is, is undaunted by the attack and vows to go after his assailants. Lorch makes a getaway, but Rico eventually must answer for the crimes he has committed.

5. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) “White Heat”

Cody Jarrett may be everyone’s favorite deranged killer. In “White Heat,” he commits acts of murder and mayhem, and meets a spectacular end.

 
Jarrett, a career criminal whose only true confidante is his mother, "Ma" Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), suffers from debilitating headaches. Ma comforts him during his attacks. She gives him a shot of booze and a toast. “Top of the world,” she says. That’s a phrase they both repeat more than once in the course of the film, and it has an ironic ring as the picture concludes.

Eventually, Cody is sent to jail for a one to three stretch, and while he’s away a member of his gang, "Big Ed" Somers (Steve Cochran), orders Roy Parker (Paul Guilfoyle), who is in prison with Cody, to kill him, but the plot fails.

Ma visits Cody in jail and tells him she’s going to go after Big Ed, and Cody frantically tries to talk her out of it.

Later, in one of the film’s most famous scenes, Cody learns that his mother is dead. He’s in a packed prison mess hall and he goes berserk.

 
He breaks out of prison and drags his would-be killer Parker with him. Once in the outside world, he puts Parker in the trunk of a car. Parker tells him it’s hard to breathe in here. Nonchalantly gnawing on a chick leg, Cody shoots “air holes” into the trunk hood, killing Parker.

 
Later he guns down Big Ed for the death of Ma Jarrett, but Cody’s wife, Verna (Virginia Mayo), actually pulled the trigger on Cody’s beloved mom.

Cody regroups and engineers an armored car robbery, which goes awry. He makes his getaway but is cornered atop a large gas storage tank. In a crazed fury he shouts “Top of the world, Ma,” as the police open fire on him. The tank explodes and Cody is consumed in a gigantic ball of flames.

6. Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) “The Big Heat”

Homicide detective Sgt. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) investigates the suicide of a fellow police officer, and that begins his unrelenting probe into the cozy relationship between organized crime and higher ups in the department. A barrage of threats, assaults and murders ensue as Bannion digs into the sleazy operations of mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby).

Lagana’s number two man, the brutal Vince Stone, is the one who brings menace to the screen. Lee Marvin turns in a first-class performance of the sadistic lackey who has a penchant for brutalizing women.

 
The suicide victim’s mistress offers Bannion some inside information about the case, and she turns up dead, tortured with cigarette burns all over. In another scene, Stone punishes a woman by burning her hand with a cigar butt – the connection between the two incidents is unavoidable.

But the most savage scene in the film involves Stone punishing his girlfriend for being too mouthy by throwing a pot of boiling coffee in her face. The police commissioner, who happens to be one of Stones poker buddies, is on hand to drive the scalded girl to the hospital. Badly disfigured, she gives Bannion more information that will help bring the mobsters to justice, but in doing so she seals her own fate.

7. Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell) “The Long Goodbye”

This Raymond Chandler story adapted to the screen 20 years after his 1953 novel was published brings private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) into a world that’s alien to him. 

It’s the 1970s and Marlowe’s crime beat, Los Angeles, is no longer the place it once was. Protest marches, hippies and head shops have found their way into the gritty mean streets that are more familiar to the detective.

Even the criminals are different. At first, mobster Marty Augustine does not come across like the roughnecks in Chandler’s novels. When Marlowe first meets him, the detective takes the criminal kingpin even less seriously than he does the L.A. cops who pop in occasionally rattle his cage. 

Augustine travels with a gaggle of inept henchmen and as leader of the pack he’s witty and charismatic. He rambles on about managing his financial responsibilities, paying for his mansions, supporting his family … and his mistress. He could be just another harried fat-cat Hollywood producer.

But then the gloves come off. The mob leader uses a glass Coke bottle and his own girlfriend’s face to demonstrate to Marlowe what will happen if the detective doesn’t fall into line. “This is what I do to someone I love,” Augustine tells Marlowe, “And I don’t even like you, cheapie.”

8. Vic Vega (Michael Madsen) “Reservoir Dogs”

If each time you hear the song “Stuck in the Middle with You” you immediately think of straight razors and gasoline, you just might be a Vic Vega fan. Vic is part of a motley group of hoods brought together for a heist by gang leader Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney). The crew aims to hold up a jewelry store and make off with a cache of uncut diamonds.

 
We never see the robbery take place, but in the aftermath we learn that things didn't go as planned. Unbeknownst to the crooks, one of them is an undercover cop, and the police have been in on the robbery plot all along. Another fact the band of thieves in unaware of is that Vic is a no-holds-barred psycho.

The gang makes its getaway from the crime scene and scatters in different directions. The plan is to meet up at their warehouse hideout. In retelling the sequence of events in the aftermath of the botched holdup, we learn just how badly things went. Larry Dimmick (Harvey Keitel) is shocked and disgusted that Vic took it upon himself to murder the jewelry store staff in cold blood.

But the worst has yet to come. Vic, also known as Mr. Blonde – each of the henchmen is tagged with an alias – shows up with a uniformed police officer he’s kidnapped.

The other robbers leave, and Vic and the cop are alone, so Vic uses the opportunity to torture the cop as the song “Stuck in the Middle” plays in the background. What follows is a sadistic sequence of events that abruptly end with a twist. Fortunately, the worst carnage takes place off camera. Suffice it to say that Vic Vega stands tall among the legion of mentally disturbed, animalistic screen criminals.

9. Tommy DeVitto (Joe Pesci) “Goodfellas”
Small-time gangster Tommy DeVitto is one of a trio of friends that includes hijacker and killer Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). Like Tommy, Henry is a kid from the neighborhood who started working for the local mob at an early age. The three are bosom buddies who rob, beat up people and party together. 

When we first meet Jimmy, Henry tells us in voiceover that “Jimmy the Gent” as some know him, was doing hits for the mob when he was just a teenager. 

However, we don’t get a sense of how vicious and unpredictable Tommy is until we see him in a Chinese restaurant with Henry and other hoods they roll with. Henry’s offhand comment to Tommy, “You’re really funny,” launches the hotheaded Tommy into a rant that leaves Henry and everyone else at the table in a panicked hush. “Funny how? Funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you?”

Instead of zooming in tight on the action the camera stays wide on the whole table, and we see the expressions on everyone’s faces as they watch in muted dread. One wiseguy tries to talk Tommy down to no avail. But then Henry calls Tommy’s bluff and we find out it was all a dark prank Tommy played on his rattled dining companions. There’s relieved laughter all around the table, but then we realize that Tommy is a truly dangerous loose canon – even his close friends think it’s possible that he’d use lethal force on his longtime buddy over a perceived insult.

The scene tells us a lot about Tommy: He’s extremely thin-skinned, has a bad temper and could lash out in violence at anyone without notice.

 
Later in the film we see Tommy liquidate a number of individuals, a couple of whom made the mistake of insulting him in front of other wiseguys; an affront that cannot go unpunished.

10. Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney) “Born to Kill”
If you had to choose a fictional character whose name perfectly describes who he is, you might pick Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney) in “Born to Kill.” Like a steaming locomotive that has run off the track and continues to chug forward, Sam puffs on his ever-present cigarette, leaving a plume of smoke and utter destruction in his path.

He’s a jealous guy who doesn’t like anyone cutting in on him. That’s why he murders his girlfriend and her gentleman visitor.

 
Helen Brent (Claire Trevor), the murdered woman’s neighbor, discovers the bodies but doesn’t bother to tell the police. She’s just gotten a Reno divorce and wants to get out of town so that she can marry her rich fiancé. She runs into Sam, and is attracted to him, despite the complication that she’s already set to get hitched.

Sam comes calling on Helen in San Francisco, and upon meeting Helen’s younger foster sister, who happens to have more than a few bucks in the bank, decides to take up with her. He marries her for her money, and carries on an affair with Helen.

The story’s multiple deceptions begin to fall apart when a private detective who has been looking into the Reno murders blackmails Helen. In the resulting confusion, Sam kills his friend Marty (Elisha Cook Jr.), who he thinks is plotting against him, and finally he shoots and kills Helen just before the police kill him.

11. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) “No Country for Old Men”

What can you say about a hitman who kills people with a pneumatic gun used on cattle in the slaughterhouse? 

Anton Chigurh, a cold-blooded and utterly insane hit man hired by the drug cartel, has a number of other tricks up his sleeve.

A deputy sheriff who thinks he has Chigurh safely secured in handcuffs finds out the hard way that this crazed murderer is not to be underestimated.

The story revolves around a bagful of cash that a hunter, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), stumbles upon while shooting elk. A drug deal gone bad left a pile of bodies, heroin and around $2 million in loot there for the taking. Llewelyn grabs the money, and the rest of the movie centers on the chase to find the hunter and the moolah.

Chigurh is hired to recover the money that Llewelyn made off with. A creature of habit, Chigurh has a ritual he uses on occasion when he’s preparing to snuff someone. He flips a coin and has the would-be victim call heads or tails. If they win the flip, they live. If not, he makes short work of them on the spot.

Llewellyn’s wife, Carla Jean, is hiding at her mother’s house and Chigurh, speaking to Llewellyn on the phone, tells him he’ll kill Carla Jean if he doesn’t get the money back, but Llewellyn refuses.

Meanwhile, Llewellyn is killed by another party hunting down the money who got to him before Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) could.

Chigurh tracks down Carla Jean, and although she doesn’t have the money, Chigurh, in his twisted sense of justice, feels that it’s his duty to kill her anyway. She refuses to call heads or tails in Chigurh’s coin flip, but that, of course cannot make Chigurh abandon his twisted quest.

12. Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) “Pulp Fiction”

Before Jules Winnfield, no one could recite Bible passages with the strident menace that he gives them. Jules and his gangster pal Vincent Vega (John Travolta) are sent to perform a hit and retrieve some valuables from a gang of young would-be hoodlums, who go weak in the knees when Jules and Vic come through the door.

Jules begins an extended game of intimidation with the young hoods, which includes eating one of the kid’s cheeseburgers and drinking all of his soda. At first, it seems he’s being the school lunchroom bully, until the intensity gets turned up a few notches.

After reducing the ringleader of the group Brett (Frank Whaley) to a state of utter panic, and shooting one of his cohorts and wounding Brett, Jules feels that he’s toyed with them long enough and goes in for the kill.

He begins reciting a Bible passage attributed to Ezekiel 25:17. It’s a passage also used in a 1976 film, “The Bodyguard,” with Japanese martial arts star Sonny Chiba. This is part of Jules’s sadistic routine to further terrorize victims he is about to deep six.

The Bible passage recitation is part of an important turn in the story, however. Jules admits he started reciting Ezekiel to the doomed to be more of a cold and cruel badass. But in this scene, he and Vincent experience a miracle of sorts, and because of this Jules has an epiphany – the words of Ezekiel take on a new meaning for him. 

He decides to leave gang life behind. "I'm going to walk the earth ... like Caine from Kung Fu," he says. Vincent stays on with the gang, and soon afterwards meets a dark fate.

13. Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) "Out of the Past"

Sometimes, a character who seems like the devil incarnate is outdone by someone tremendously more evil than he. Gang boss Whit Sterling’s (Kirk Douglas) crisp, authoritative manor befits the successful businessman thug that he is. And while there’s a lot of bloodshed in “Out of the Past,” Sterling is just the overseer who stands on the sidelines while others pull the triggers.

 
The dangerous one is his girlfriend, the two-timing Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), who looks innocent but turns out to be a cold-blooded killer and master manipulator.

The story begins when one of Sterling’s men hunts down Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), who has been hiding out in a small town ever since he double-crossed Sterling. Several years before, Sterling hired Jeff, who was then a private investigator, to find Kathie, whom he said shot him and ran off with $40,000 of his money.

 
When Jeff finds her in Mexico she convinces Jeff that she didn’t take money from Sterling. A love affair develops between them, and instead of bringing her back to Sterling he takes her away to San Francisco to hide out. 

But Jeff’s old partner, Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie), spots them and demands blackmail money. Kathie shoots Fisher dead and tries to pin the murders of Fisher and Sterling’s accountant on Jeff. She later kills Sterling, and offers Jeff the opportunity to run away with her and the money she took from Sterling, or take the rap for all three murders. 

Jeff tells her that he will go away with her, but he secretly tips off the police. When they unexpectedly encounter a roadblock, Kathie realizes she’s been double-crossed and she shoots and kills Jeff, them fires at the police, who kill her.

14. Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) “The Asphalt Jungle”

Dix Handley isn’t the kind of gangster that goes straight for the gun whenever someone crosses him. Instead, he stares down his opponents, who always seem to realize that they’d be better off backing down than pressing their point. Other gangsters call him a “hooligan,” but only behind his back.

There’s been a holdup, and Dix is the chief suspect. The cops bring Dix in for a lineup, and corrupt police lieutenant Ditrich (Barry Kelley) tries to steer the witness, the night clerk (Frank Cady), toward identifying Dix as the culprit. But Dix gives the clerk the 1,000-yard deadeye stare, and the meek eyewitness’s liver turns to jelly. He tells the cops that Dix isn’t the stickup man.

When Dix goes to sleazy bookmaker Cobby (Marc Lawrence) to bet on the ponies, but Cobby balks at giving him credit. “Don’t bone me,” he shouts at the bookie, who is genuinely petrified of Dix. Later, after Dix leaves the bookie’s lair, Cobby calls Dix a “hooligan,” and remarks that, “They’re all like left-handed pitchers. They’ve all got a screw loose.”

Dix gets involved in a jewel heist masterminded by Doc Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe). The heist goes off, but not as planned, and Doc and Dix go to the man who financed the caper and agreed to pay them for the hot gems, Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern ). They arrive at Emmerich’s home and Dix has a stare-down with Bob Brannom (Brad Dexter), a private detective in Emmerich’s employ. Once again, Dix’s withering glare makes the hired gumshoes back down. Gunplay ensues, and Dix kills the Brannon but he is wounded.

 
The driven Dix flees and although seriously wounded, makes the 10-hour car ride to his boyhood home in Kentucky. He arrives at his beloved horse ranch, but it’s too late to realize his dream of buying back the property his family once owned.

15. Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) “The Killing”
In Stanley Kubrick’s, “The Killing,” Johnny Clay, (Sterling Hayden) rounds up a carefully selected gang to rob a racetrack, noting that most of the men he’s chosen aren’t criminals in the usual sense. They’ve all got families and jobs and are living respectable lives. “They’ve all got a little larceny in them,” he says.

His handpicked partners in crime are all flawed in different ways, and those problems play a role in the story as it unfolds.

George’s (Elisha Cook Jr.) two-timing wife, Sherry (Marie Windsor), constantly browbeats him for not keeping her in riches. He tells her about the top-secret robbery scheme in the naive hope that she will finally respect and love him.

When the snooping Sherry shows up on his doorstep, Johnny has her number. Crime novelist Jim Thompson wrote the film’s dialogue with his usual knack for earthy thug-speak. “I don’t think I’ll have to kill her,” Johnny tells one of his cohorts. “Just slap that pretty face into hamburger meat, that’s all.”

Johnny brushes aside Sherry's naive seductress act. “You like money,” he tells her. “You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.” His observation is right on the mark, but she proves to be Johnny and the gang’s downfall.

Noir Shot on Color Film ...

They're every bit as dark as the ones in black and white ...

Death Under Mysterious Circumstances

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