Murder by Contract

Get out your rifles and golf balls, we're reviewing Murder by Contract!

Claude (Vincent Edwards) is law-abiding citizen: a law-abiding citizen that happens to be a perfect contract killer. But when he takes a job to kill Billie Williams (Caprice Toriel), it all starts going south.

The Bad Sleep Well

Get out your birthday cakes and photographs, we're reviewing The Bad Sleep Well!

This is a black and white japanese noir from the 1960's, so already I know some of you are tuning off. For those of you still interested in old foreign films or noir, well, you might still be turned off.

Kiss Me Deadly

Today we discover a great whatsit in Kiss Me Deadly!

This movie had a great use of light and shadow, look at that first shot! And also, a crazy lady opening the infamous 'great whatsit'.

I know what you're thinking. "Another noir Josh? Aren't you tired of these old black and white whodunits yet?" NEVER! I'm actually going to do a list of my favorites sometime in the near future, because this is a movie blog, and what's a movie blog with out lists in intervals of 10?

Anyways, back to the review. Kiss Me Deadly is about womanizing detective Mike Hammer(Ralph Meeker) trying to uncover a woman's murder and a mysterious "whatsit" that everyone is trying to get their hands on.

Let's go to the Noir Stats:

Light and Shadowness: 8/10

Bleakdepressibility: 9/10

Batmanitude: 6/10

Dialogue: 7/10

Creepiness: 5/10

Cthulhuocity: (:€/10

Ok, so it doesn't distinctly have the great tentacled Lord Cthulhu, but his has a creepy box with tentacles that has Something in it, so there's no saying it's not the dark tentacled lord either. But in all seriousness, it is quite creepy.

If you read any other review of this movie(or the back of the box even, thanks alot DVD case) it will tell you how it ends, which I never like to hear. So let me just say, it doesn't end well. In fact, it probably has the bleakest ending of any noir ever, tilting dreadfully over the edge of the supernatural. And that's really how any good noir should end, but this isn't a good noir, it's a great one.

It's dark, it's bleak, it's downcast, and downright disturbing. Everything about this from the tone to the story to the lighting to the characters screams noir. Not even the main hero, Mike Hammer, is a beacon of light; he's just a thug who can't remember what right is anymore. He does his job, and does what's necessary to get the job done. Oh and did I mention he's batman?

Let me lay it down for you:

Women flock to him

He can't be killed,

He's a loner and tragedy follows him everywhere,

What he does to thugs is so extreme and badass to show on screen. All you'll ever see is thugs cower away in fear. He is totally batman.

All the supporting characters are interesting and full of individuality. The villain's are menacing, the friends are jovial, the thugs are hard, and the dames are beautiful.

Let's get back to the dark creepiness. The first sign is the opening credits, which are going the wrong way, and feature a woman whimpering hysterically in the background. These are the most disturbing opening credits you'll ever see:

After that, it just gets weirder. There's the oddly calm voice of the villain, the female victims of the crazy ward, the horrified screams of Thugs after Mike gets done with them, and the strange whisperings from a box not to be opened.

The pacing is good and provides some great tension. The dialogue is top notch and thoroughly enjoyable; each character has their own distinct voice and the main characters have some great monologues.

For Noir fanatics, this is a must, but it's just a great creepy, actiony old movie for anyone. I highly recommend it. A top notch 12 out of 13.

"Kiss me, Mike. I want you to kiss me. Kiss me. The liar's kiss that says I love you, and means something else. You're good at those kisses, Mike. Kiss me."

Detour

This week we take a detour(giggle!) with the movie Detour!

I actually stopped the DVD in the middle of the movie so I could draw his face. Just look't that face! Now that's a hardened face.

Detour is a movie about Al Roberts(Tom Neal) trying to get to his honey in L.A. when he gets picked up by a man and accidentally kills him! Things get real heated when a prissy dame named Vera(Ann Savage) discovers his fiendish deed and tries to take him for all he's worth!

This is honestly one of my new favorite noirs. There aren't a lot of twists and turns and new characters, it's very intimate, very crowding. Most of the story is narrated by the main character, and it couldn't have been done better. Most movies with narration feel unneeded. They start off, "Hey, this is me. My name is john everyman. This is the story of how I did stuff." Detour, on the other hand, actually feels like he's thinking to himself. It uses the narration to add character instead of exposition.

I love ow they use the camera work and lighting to signify that it's all in his head. All of a sudden everyone goes quiet, the lights dim eerily, and the camera slowly pans in to Neal's distraught face.

The dialogue's so sharp you can cut a ripe mellon with it!

"There's a folding bed. you know how to use it?"

"I invented it."

Al and Vera, the main characters have such distinctive talking styles and they have so much fun hating each other you can't help but enjoy it.

The story is a tension filled progression into madness, like all great noir stories. The road to a good noir downfall is paved with characters trying to cover up their own messes in exceedingly ridiculous ways, and Detour is no different. You feel for Al as he digs himself further and further into a grave and get surprised at every turn as fate knocks him down again.

This has a great classic noir message: Fate will screw you over whenever it feels like it, and there's nothing you can do about it. The last images of Al walking down the side of the road mournfully, all his mistakes weighing him down, cements fate's cruel humor on life.

Man I loved this movie. I could easily watch it four more times. The dialogue is great, the story is sad, the cinematography is top notch, I'd give this a 35 out of 37. A must for noir enthusiasts. See you next time movie watcher people!

The Stranger

The Stranger is a noir directed by and starring Orson Welles. This is a very important point to make, because Orson Welles' Noirs are not your typical noirs, which for The Stranger are both it's high point and downfall.

The plot: The Stranger is about a former Nazi, Professor Charles Rankin(Orson Welles) posing as a college professor when a war times criminal detective(Edward G Robinson) comes to town looking for him. Rankin has taken a wife and integrated himself into the small town. The biggest mystery here is what are the lengths to which he'll go to not be found out?

Since this is an Orson Welles Noir, a few things are a given: Big production values, great cinematography, great acting, and Orson steels the spotlight. It' similar to Hughes movie, if Hughes stared and had all the best lines. The Stranger is no different. The production values are great and the camera pans and dollies off the ground like no one's business. But while there are quite a few nice shots here, it's nothing compared to Welles other works such as A Touch of Evil or Citizen Kane.

The whole movie centers on what Rankin will do, meaning Welles gets most of the spotlight. Not that he didn't give a great intense performance, I just find it a shame because I was looking forward to seeing Edward G. Robinson let loose. It might have been the pacing or the fact that I already knew who the main villain was, and therefore who gets his comeuppance at the end(and man does Welles ever like his death scenes), but I just found it so hard to get through this. I didn't know exactly how it would end, but I just didn't find it suspenseful somehow. Even with it's dramatic music.

And gosh, what dramatic music it was! If you are into suspenseful dramatic movies in Noir movies like me, this will be high point for you. There was one scene in which Welles is patting the ground with a shovel, which could have been a very low, downplayed scene. Instead, CRAZY MUSIC! WHAT'S GOING ON! I HOPE SOMEONE DOESN'T FIND HIM DIGGING IN THE DIRT!

I found it more suspenseful in the beginning, right after someone had just committed a murder. It left me wondering if anyone's going to find the body or who's going to find out Rankin's real identity. But in the third act when literally everyone knows who the professor really is and there's still half an hour left, the rest of the movie feels so drawn out. And then the ending seems strangely happy with church belles and a smiling Edward G Robinson even after all the dramatic and trauma inducing events going on.

I wasn't really satisfied with this one. I couldn't wait for it to be over with. Sure it's got some nice shots and Orson Welles does a great Orson Welles impersonation, but I wouldn't say it's essential to your Noir library. I'd give it a 52 out of 85.

The Racket

Robert Ryan with Technical Pen and Robert Mitchum with a Brush Pen

The Racket! Brought to you by HOWARD HUGHES.

Yes, that Howard Hughes.

This was a great movie with outstanding acting and production values. The only part I was really let down was it's story, which may be because I was expecting a Noir(and Gosh I love Noir), but instead it was more of a gangster flick.

The Set-up: There's a big crime syndicate in town headed by "The Old man" with one of the major players being Nick Scanlon(Robert Ryan). The police get Captain Thomas McQuigg(Robert Mitchum), the only honest cop left on the force, to take Scanlon and the man down. Also, there's a dame(Lizabeth Scott) because, you know, whatever. Movies gotta have dames!

Everything about the production of this movie was fantastic. I was first intrigued when I read johnkstuff.blogspot.com and saw this one scene (which may be my favorite scene in the entire movie). If you're really into the nuts and bolts of movies and you know what Mise-en-scène is, you'll love this movie. The cinematography is amazing, and they set up shots beautifully. Watch that one clip above, you'll see the camera pan in and out seamlessly while characters step into shots and all the characters magically have enough room on screen! There's not one overlapping body there. It really feels like they actually put thought into how EVERYTHING would be set up instead of just throwing actors on screen and hoping it pans out well.

The acting in this is top notch, especially when the Robert's Ryan and Mitchum go at one another. Mitchum plays the cool collected police captain delivering glared silence as if they were catchy one-liners. And Robert Ryan (who should be in ever Noir movie EVER because he's such a badass. He's the Clive Owen of his time) makes a great villain as intense, cocky, and downright violent.

I haven't seen a lot of Howard Hughes films, but I suppose this is the way he makes them, top-notch. Also there were lots of shootouts, and a house exploded! I did not see that coming for a movie this old(Imagine the audience back then! Imagine to be the Michael Bay of your day.

I should mention about the music that...there was none. At least 80% of the movie was without music. There's a song in the middle sung by the main girl(which I'm guessing they shoehorned in there just for the audience or for the actress's contract) and some light tragic music when one of the main good guys died, but all the dramatic music you're used to hearing was absent. I honestly rather enjoyed that. It made room for the acting. Sorry composers.

The only real problem I had was with the story. It was very straight forward good guys vs. bad guys. You knew which side everyone was on, and you knew who was going to get the girl and who was going to get major comeuppance. Watching Noir, I'm used to shady characters whom you don't know who's side their on, crazy plot twists, fallen heroes and thugs with hearts of gold. None here. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. Not that the characters didn't have character, you just knew whose team everyone was on.

Oh and here's a plot twist: The major good guys are all married! Gasp! No love interest to fawn over for two thirds of the movie?! Scandalous!

SPOILER ALERT SORTA They kept mentioning, "The old man" who must be the head crime lord honcho, and I kept expecting one of the characters we see to step into the light and reveal, "Don't you get it?! The old man's been dead for years. I am the old man! DUN DUN DUN" But no. We just get a phone cal at the end in which one of the main bad guys supposedly talks to him. Oh well. END SPOILER ALERT SORTA

Also, I felt it strange they kept introducing characters throughout the movie. Not minor characters, major characters. There's a newspaper reporter who's friends with the hardened beat cop that we don't meet until halfway through, yet he plays an intricate part of Nick's downfall. And he's the one who gets the girl! Why didn't we meet him sooner in the movie? I'm not saying it's bad film making, just an interesting choice, very frugal. We don't need him right now, so let's save him for later.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It had great pacing, and there wasn't one part where I was bored or thought was slow. I can't really fault the story for being what it was, just like I can't fault a family movie for not having enough blood. Really it was my expectations that were too in the gutter. I'd give it a solid 14 out of 17. If you're into old movies or you're an artist looking for good cinematography/shots reference, I'd highly recommend picking it up.