It's never been clear to me what a film noir is. A treacherous woman? The traditional iconography of black sedans and snub-nosed revolvers? Black and white? Seedy surroundings or exotic ones? Murder or grand larceny? Revenge? Charlie Chan had all of them.
This one would seem to have all the proper elements though. Here is Dick Powell, who gave a good performance as Philip Marlowe in "Murder My Sweet." A .38 and a .45 caliber pistol. Rhonda Fleming, a femme than whom no one is more fatale. A semi-comic sidekick in Richard Erdman. Good old Los Angeles setting, and well chosen too. Fine noir title.
Yet the whole thing just doesn't jell. If film noir has anything, it has two basic elements, as Alain Silver pointed out -- dramatic photography and unusual camera placements. This has neither stylistic element. It's shot mostly during the daytime and Robert Parrish, an intelligent guy, has shot it as the straightforward unraveling of a mystery surrounding a double cross. You could substitute Cagney and Bogart and you'd have a typical, inexpensive Warner Brothers' gangster movie from the 1930s.
Dick Powell looks good in his neatly tailored suits and flat-brimmed fedora. He gets to drive a two-ton Nash as well. He's just been released from the slams after serving five years for a robbery he did not take part in. But, man, is he expressionless. When he makes a wise crack or is supposed to be sad, his face takes on a look of agony, as if trying to rearrange its own musculature is a colossal effort. And the script doesn't help him. The hospitalized Erdman asks about his, Erdman's, girl friend. "What about Doreen? How bad is she?" Powell: "As bad as she can get." William Conrad gives a stereotypical performance too but it is probably the best one because, cliché or not, the evil fat man is invariably a colorful role. Think of Sidney Greenstreet. Regis Toomey as the cop with whom Powell has a suitably ambivalent relationship looks like General George Marshall. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced they're not one and the same person. Let me put it this way. Have you ever seen the two of them in the same room together?
And the end, such as it is, kind of collapses in on itself. There isn't the expectable shootout. The villain doesn't twist around and fall from the roof with a splash. There is no clinch followed by a dissolve. Instead, after learning the true story from an unwitting Fleming, Powell tells her they're leaving for Timbuctoo and tells her to pack. Then he walks out, spills the beans to the waiting police, and strolls away.
I'm kind of making fun of it but I rather enjoyed it too. Everyone likes to see a puzzle solved.
This one would seem to have all the proper elements though. Here is Dick Powell, who gave a good performance as Philip Marlowe in "Murder My Sweet." A .38 and a .45 caliber pistol. Rhonda Fleming, a femme than whom no one is more fatale. A semi-comic sidekick in Richard Erdman. Good old Los Angeles setting, and well chosen too. Fine noir title.
Yet the whole thing just doesn't jell. If film noir has anything, it has two basic elements, as Alain Silver pointed out -- dramatic photography and unusual camera placements. This has neither stylistic element. It's shot mostly during the daytime and Robert Parrish, an intelligent guy, has shot it as the straightforward unraveling of a mystery surrounding a double cross. You could substitute Cagney and Bogart and you'd have a typical, inexpensive Warner Brothers' gangster movie from the 1930s.
Dick Powell looks good in his neatly tailored suits and flat-brimmed fedora. He gets to drive a two-ton Nash as well. He's just been released from the slams after serving five years for a robbery he did not take part in. But, man, is he expressionless. When he makes a wise crack or is supposed to be sad, his face takes on a look of agony, as if trying to rearrange its own musculature is a colossal effort. And the script doesn't help him. The hospitalized Erdman asks about his, Erdman's, girl friend. "What about Doreen? How bad is she?" Powell: "As bad as she can get." William Conrad gives a stereotypical performance too but it is probably the best one because, cliché or not, the evil fat man is invariably a colorful role. Think of Sidney Greenstreet. Regis Toomey as the cop with whom Powell has a suitably ambivalent relationship looks like General George Marshall. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced they're not one and the same person. Let me put it this way. Have you ever seen the two of them in the same room together?
And the end, such as it is, kind of collapses in on itself. There isn't the expectable shootout. The villain doesn't twist around and fall from the roof with a splash. There is no clinch followed by a dissolve. Instead, after learning the true story from an unwitting Fleming, Powell tells her they're leaving for Timbuctoo and tells her to pack. Then he walks out, spills the beans to the waiting police, and strolls away.
I'm kind of making fun of it but I rather enjoyed it too. Everyone likes to see a puzzle solved.