The
Columbia Noir collection was one of the most popular during the early days of
the Criterion Channel – so much so, that for it is first anniversary they not
only brought it back and expanded the selection. There are now 26 titles in the
Columbia Noir collection. Last year, I watched or re-watched six of those
titles – this year, I plan on watching the other 20. And below, is a ranking of
all 26. Some of these I will do full reviews of – or already (have – others I
won’t, simply as a matter of time). It is an excellent collection – with some
legitimate masterworks, and some fun B movies as well – only a few aren’t really
worth your time.
26. 5 Against the House (Phil Karlson, 1955) – Sometimes cheap B-movies remain so simply because they
aren’t very good – and that’s the case with this heist film. Four friends, the
old guys at college after returning from Korea, get mistaken for casino robbers
in Reno, and hatch a plot to do it for real – and draw in the finance of one of
one (Kim Novak). It’s a fairly cheap film, and feels like a programmer and
nothing more. At one point, the young Novak breaks into song for some reason.
The heist plot is overly complicated, and bizarrely it is all pinned on one guy
(Brian Keith), and the rest apparently get off scot-free. Director Phil Karlson
can be great – this very same year he directed The Phenix City Story, which is
brilliant (as well as two other films in 1955 – including Tight Spot, also part
of this collection). This feels like exactly what it was – something cheap
tossed off for all involved without much care.
25. Blind Alley (Charles Vidor, 1939) – The earliest one in the collection is not one of the
best. It’s fairly lightweight, and almost comical in its Freudian dissection of
the criminal mind. The film is about a criminal (Morris) who escapes from jail,
and takes a psychologist (Bellamy) and his family hostage – with Bellamy
eventually figuring out all of Morris’ problems. The acting isn’t uniform
either, with silent star Chester Morris, still mugging for the camera – and
Ralph Bellamy having to speak in psycho-babble speeches. Yet, it’s a short
movie – just under 70-minutes, and moves quickly. It’s an interesting little
film – kind of combining the gangster genre of the 1930s, with what would come
with noir, but not quite being either. A curiosity more than a satisfying film
in its own right, it at least holds your attention.
24. Tight Spot (Phil Karlson, 1955) – Ginger Rogers stars as a tough female convict, who the
cops – lead by Brian Keith, who falls for her, and Edward G. Robinson as the
D.A., gets her out of jail in the hopes that she will testify against a mobster
who will go free otherwise. It is hardly vintage Rogers or Robinson – both were
kind of at the tail end of their movie careers as stars anyway, and they’re
basically phoning it in. It’s also not really a noir either. For the most part
it’s fun, but it really is a cheapie genre film, not made to last.
23.The Dark Past (Rudolph Mate, 1948) – This is a remake of Blind
Alley – and it basically has the same issues with its screenplay as that film
did – too many speeches, too much overt Freudian analysis, and adds another one
– awkward bookends with the shrink, played by Lee J. Cobb. But it’s also
slightly better overall than Blind Alley – mostly due to the fact that I think
William Holden and Cobb more than Morris and Bellamy, and Mate’s direction
basically apes better noir, which had become a thing by then is better than
Vidor’s, who did more of a melodrama thing. Still, I’m not sure you really need
to see either of these.
22. The Burglar (Paul Wendkos, 1957) – This film is about three films in one, all mushed
together, in ways that don’t entirely satisfy. This sat on the shelf for two
years, before Columbia bought it for release – and you can kind of see why. Dan
Duryea, usually a great slimy character actor, here as the lead – as a burglar
who steals jewels from a fake spiritualist, and then head to Atlantic City to
hide out. The heist is a highlight of the movie – it’s not Rififi or anything,
but it’s pretty good. Then the film kind of shifts into something else. Duryea
is fine, a young Jayne Mansfield not so much. It’s all decent, and moves
quickly from one thing to another, but it never quite comes together as a
satisfying whole.
21. So Dark the Night (Joseph H. Lewis, 1946) – So Dark the Night is a weird film – a kind of Agatha
Christie style mystery, wrapped in the trappings of noir, that both plays
itself for laughs, and takes it seriously – and all in just 71 minutes. Does it
work? Not entirely – the big twist here, with what happens when a genius level
detective on vacation (played by Steven Geray) starts investigating one murder,
and finds it spin out to more, is, well, odd to say the least – the type of
twist a hack screenwriter thinks is clever. But it certainly is, well, weird.
20. Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1947) – Any Noir with Humphrey Bogart in its lead cannot be
all bad – and while that’s true of Dead Reckoning, it also certainly doesn’t
rank among Bogart’s best noir. This film, where Bogart plays a paratrooper,
returning to America with his buddy, who disappears, and turns up murdered,
when he discovers he’s going to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor is classically
structured noir all the way. Bogart starts playing detective – and it doesn’t
take him long to get in over his head, and fall for a classic femme fatale
(Lizbeth Scott). The movie kind of spins its wheels after a while though –
repeating itself. And although 100 minutes is far from a long movie – it’s far
too long for this one. Like I said, any noir with Bogart cannot be bad – and
Scott helps a lot too – but there’s a reason it doesn’t rank with his more
famous noirs.
19. The Crimson Kimono (Samuel Fuller, 1959) – Director Samuel Fuller examined the subject of racism
throughout his career, and it kind of takes over the 1959 noir The Crimson
Kimono. The plot is about two detectives – best friends, one white, one
Japanese America (James Shigeta), investigating the murder of a stripper, and
both falling for the same woman (Victoria Shaw). To be honest, the murder
mystery kind of gets lost along the way – in favor of Shigeta’s questioning his
place in America, and the racism he faces. If this were made today, it would be
laughed at as far too simplistic – but for 1959, it really was kind of
groundbreaking – so there is some importance to the film. It isn’t quite all
that interesting to watch however – a film full of good intentions, and an
interesting time capsule, but hardly the best of Fuller’s great career.
18. The Mob (Robert Parrish, 1951) – This quick moving, not-really-noir, stars Broderick
Crawford as a cop, who lets a murderer slip through his fingers, and then has
to go undercover as a longshoreman from New Orleans to try and get to the
bottom of corruption on the docks. The movie works best for its first hour – as
Crawford gets deeper and deeper into the mob – also enjoyable to see him go
toe-to-toe with Ernest Borgnine. The climax probably gets a little too
complicated, and isn’t quite as much fun – but overall, this is pretty much exactly
what Columbia Noir promises – fast-moving, entertaining B-level genre films.
17.Affair in Trinidad
(Vincent Sherman, 1952) – Rita
Hayworth’s “comeback” movie to Columbia after 5 years away, the film basically
ends up being Gilda-light. Once again, Hayworth stars as a nightclub singer in
a tropical locale, and Glenn Ford plays a man who both loves her and hates her,
because of her relationship with an effeminate rich man. But this film isn’t as
harsh as Gilda was – we know from the start that Hayworth is innocent, she acts
the way she does because she’s trying to get information on her husband’s
murder, and Ford acts the way he does but her husband was his brother, and he
thinks his wife was cheating on him – and that everyone is trying to convince
him his brother committed suicide. As a film itself, it’s fine – Hayworth is
dances wonderfully, and does the rest of what she does well, as does Ford. It’s
mainly interesting as an echo of Gilda though.
16. Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1956) – Jacques Tourneur was one of the great journeymen
directors of his era – moving from one genre to the next with ease – sometimes producing
masterpieces like Out of the Past, one of the best noirs ever made, and
sometimes producing a fleet, entering B-movie like Nightfall. It is a classic
wrong man set-up, with Aldo Ray accused of bank robbery and murder, and
pursued, and falling for a young Anne Bancroft along the way. The movie is
fleet footed and entertaining – and even if it never rises to the level of Tourneur’s
best work, it’s certainly an entertaining B-movie.
15. Johnny O’Clock (Robert Rossen, 1947) – Robert Rossen’s breezy noir
stars Dick Powell in full movie star mode as the charming title character – a
man who runs a casino, and kind of floats on the surface, liked by all. Then,
his playboy ways catch up with him, and he’s drawn into a web of murder and
revenge. Lighter than a lot of noir – with a hero who is a likable heel that
you still root for. Quite a good debut for Rossen – and a movie star vehicle
for Powell, with solid character work by Lee J. Cobb. Diminished (slightly) but
some unconvincing supporting performances, and the strange name of the title
character – making it slightly harder to take seriously – but still a
crackerjack entertainment.
14. Pushover (Richard Quine, 1954) – The presence of Fred MacMurray in the film really does
make one think of Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Double Indemnity (1944). Once
again, MacMurray falls for a femme fatale (Kim Novak) he is supposed to be
investigating, leading him down a path to murder, and then more murder to cover
it up, and try and get a lot of money to run away with the girl. The movie is,
of course, no Double Indemnity – Novak’s performance, and her character, have
nothing on Barbara Stanwyck. And the whole movie has the feel of a quickie
B-movie, which it what it is. But that works amazing well, is fun and movies at
a breakneck pace to its inevitable conclusion. A wonderful B-movie.
13. The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson, 1956) – There is an added layer of interest in The Harder They
Fall because it was Bogart’s last film – filmed right before his cancer
diagnosis, when he was clearly in pain. It’s also one of those late 1950s films
where you can watch different kinds of acting – Bogart’s old school movie star
charisma vs. Rod Steiger’s method acting – and remarkably they both work well
individually, and together. The story, with Steiger’s heavy hiring Bogart’s
recently fired boxing reporter to promote his latest prospect – a worthless,
but huge, South American boxer to stardom. The whole thing works, in an old
school way – and really does kind of feel like an end of an era in many ways.
12. The Brothers Rico (Phil Karlson, 1957) – Richard Conte stars as a former mob accountant who has
gone straight – but is dragged back in to track down his younger brother, who
may or may not have reached out to the D.A. On the surface, the film doesn’t
really feel like noir – but it really kind of is, with Conte as the dupe,
sucked deeper and deeper into a world. The cross-country narrative works as
well, and Karlson’s direction is top notch. I do think the end of the film is a
big letdown – you know what has to happen, but it just doesn’t work as well as
the terrific rest of the film.
11.Drive
a Crooked Road (Richard Quine, 1954) – Out of all the dupes in film noir, I’m not sure I feel
more outright sympathy for any of them more than I do for Mickey Rooney’s Eddie
in Drive a Crooked Road. A mechanic, and race car driver at local racers, he’s
got a scar on his head, and seems a little slow, but is basically happy in his
life – until a criminal’s girlfriend (Dianne Foster) seduces him, and gradually
convince him to get the getaway driver for a bank robbery. Eddie is such an
innocent here, who gets in way over his head, but he really doesn’t want to –
he isn’t motivated by greed or lust, but because he genuinely loves her. The
movie itself isn’t as good as the character or Rooney’s performance – but they
do a lot of heavy lifting to make this one genuinely moving – and exciting.
10. The Lineup (Don Siegel, 1958) – Shot on location in San
Francisco, The Lineup is a terrific entertainment – featuring a memorable
performance by Eli Wallach as the psychopath gangster Dancer, who travels
around the city retrieving packages of heroin, by any means necessary, smuggled
in my unsuspecting tourists returning home. The film shifts focus a few times –
first looking perhaps it’s going to be a wrong man narrative, then a police
procedural, before finally settling on Dancer as its main character. The film
makes terrific use of the real locations, and like the best of Siegel’s doesn’t
have an ounce of fat on it.
9. The Sniper (Edward Dmytryk, 1952) – Watching The Sniper in 2020 is a very odd experience.
It’s main character, Eddie Miller played by Arthur Franz, is pretty much a
prototypical “angry white man with a gun” – who has just become a larger and
larger problem in the nearly 70 years since the film was made. He is basically
an incel – who gets angry at women, particularly women with boyfriends, who he
feels “rejects” him, when really, they haven’t done anything wrong. The only
real difference here is that Eddie takes out the specific women he hates,
one-by-one, with a sniper rifle, instead of one mass incident. The film tries
to psychoanalyze him a little – and has far more sympathy for Eddie than normal
– right down to the final shot. It’s a film to watch and wrestle with.
8. My Name is Julia Ross (Joseph H. Lewis, 1945) – The title character here is
played in a terrific performance by Nina Foch in a terrific performance. She
plays a down-on-her-luck woman who takes a job from a mysterious stranger – and
then wakes up in their house, being told my everyone that she is not who she
thinks she is. Terrific supporting work by Dame May Whitty, as an overbearing
mother who is willing to do anything to protect her son. Director Lewis keeps
things moving at a crackerjack pace for the entire 65-minute runtime.
Personally, I think I would have liked it more had we not known the truth from
the outset – but this is a terrific film in the vein of Gaslight.
7. Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) – The film that made Rita
Hayworth an icon, with one of the most memorable entrances in all of cinema,
had previously struck me as kind of lightweight, mainly because the happy
ending of the film feels so false. And yet, without that happy ending, this
film would actually be incredibly dark and disturbing. Hayworth’s Gilda isn’t
really even a femme fatale, or the villain here. It is Glenn Ford who is the
dangerous one here – and he is just about perfect in his role, playing
perfectly against Hayworth. Personally, I would have preferred a darker ending
– that may have marked this a masterpiece – but as it stands, it’s still pretty
great.
6. Human
Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954) – A year
after they made an acknowledged masterpiece – The Big Heat – director Fritz
Lang reteamed with stars Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame to make this remake of
Jean Renoir’s La Bette Humaine (1938) based on the novel by Emile Zola. The
film doesn’t have the reputation of The Big Heat – and admittedly, it isn’t
quite as good – but honestly, I think this film is grossly underrated. In the
film, Ford plays a train engineer just returned from the Korean war, who falls
for Grahme – who is married to an angry co-worker – Broderick Crawford – who
has already killed one man, and may kill more. Made during the period when
Grahme was one of the best actresses in Hollywood (seriously, she won a much
deserved Oscar for The Bad and the Beautiful in 1952 – yet I think she’s even
better in The Big Heat and In a Lonely Place), she makes a wonderful would-be
femme fatale – with Ford a slight twist on the regular dupe, and Crawford
excellent as the human beast of the original title – this is an underrated film
from one of the great directors of all time.
5. Experiment in Terror (Blake Edwards, 1962) – Blake Edwards is, of course,
best known for his comedies (he is one of the great comedic directors of all
time) – but here, he directs an excellent Hitchcock-ian thriller about an asthmatic
man harassing a bank clerk (Lee Remnick) – forcing her to steal from her
employer, with cop Glenn Ford trying to crack the case. My only doubt with this
film is if it’ actually noir at all (it doesn’t really feel like it) – but
whatever you call it, it is terrific. It’s also the latest film in the
collection – and the longest, and yet Edwards never lets the tension flag, and
it contains such terrific performances. Edwards isn’t who you’d expect to
deliver something this terrific and taut – but he does.
4. The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947) – Like many of Welles’
Hollywood films, he made this for money – and it shows, as the film has a
tossed off feel to it, as if Welles couldn’t care less about the narrative.
Recut without him, the film almost feels like it’s missing some scenes – and
the infamous funhouse climax is as brilliant as anything you will ever, even in
its truncated form. Welles seems to want to undermine the whole thing – from
his over-the-top accent, to making a farce out of the courtroom climax, to
making his then wife, and leading lady, Rita Hayworth chop off and dye her
infamous hair. Seriously, the film probably shouldn’t work at all – and yet
somehow it does work, and brilliantly so.
3. Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, 1958) – This is probably the oddest title in the collection –
the most one-of-a-kind hidden gem that we all look for, and so rarely find. Martin
Scorsese is a big fan, and has raised the visibility of the film – and you can
see the influence on others – like perhaps Jim Jarmusch. The story, of a young,
callous hitman (Vince Edwards) who is able to operate without feeling – that is
until his latest client, who for the first time is a woman, and he just doesn’t
seem to be able to finish the job. It is an idiosyncratic portrait of this
hitman in existential dread. If Jean-Pierre Melville had made a low budget
American film in 1958 – it may well have looked like Murder by Contract – a masterwork
from little-known Irving Lerner.
2. The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) – One of the best films of
Fritz Lang’s career – certainly of his Hollywood career – in this film in which
are hero is really an asshole, and responsible for almost all the horrible
things that happens in the film, particularly the horrible things that befall
all the women in the film. Glenn Ford – who, by the by the way, is terrific in
a lot of films in this collection maybe gives the best performance of his
career, as a cop whose wife and son are killed, and sets out for revenge. A
young Lee Marvin is terrific here too as the heavy – and has the most famous scene.
It is also one of the best performances of Gloria Grahame – which shows how
great she is. Lang has this film fly by – in just 89-minutes - and undercuts the
supposed happy ending. Overall, one of the great noirs of all time.
1.In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950) – This is one of the best
noirs ever made – and as great as any number of other films in this collection
– are the easy choice for best in the collection. The film stars Bogart – in
one of his 2 or 3 best performances – a screenwriter who may or may not be a
murderer, who is cleared by his beautiful neighbor (the great Gloria Grahame)
who starts to doubt her own testimony, even as she falls in love with him. This
is a deep, dark film – probably the best of the great Nicholas Ray’s career.
This is an enigmatic noir – one that has to string the audience along, not
telling them all the information they have, but still make it satisfying – and
doing a character study. Just because Bogart may not be a murderer – it doesn’t
mean he isn’t a violent asshole. An absolute masterpiece.
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