ADIFF ’20: Mr. Weekend

No film noir anti-hero ever starts a movie in media res to marvel at all the shrewd decisions they just made. That is especially true of Charlie Jenkins, a small-time under-bookie, who handles payouts and collections for his far more powerful and dangerous boss, Big Slim Fizz. He tries to turn a bad collection into a big score, but obviously he is in over his head in director-screenwriter-producer McKenzie Woodward’s Mr. Weekend, which screens virtually as part of the 2020 NY African Diaspora International Film Festival.

Jenkins always liked old-school gun-dealer Hyman Steinberg, even though he is always especially reluctant to pay up. However, booking a ticket to Thailand when you owe $67K is definitely a no-no. Worry not, he assures Jenkins, because he has a multi-million-dollar bag of crystal LSD to flip. However, when Jenkins returns, Steinberg is in the process of being murdered, so instead, he sneaks away with the drugs under their noses.

Naturally, Jenkins wants to move the illicit merch fast, so he can run-off with his prostitute girlfriend, Nora Fiddledown, even though some very angry people are out there looking for the drugs. He also has to settle Steinberg’s debt, to keep Big Slim Fizz off his back. It sounds like a great plan, but we know things get dicey from the prologue.

Mr. Weekend hooks viewers right from the start, with one of the best opening credit sequences in years, thanks to its clever title design, accompanied by Mulatu Astatke’s eternally cool “Tezeta.” Woodward maintains the vibe impressively, immersing us in Jenkins’ dodgy bookmaking milieu. The film nails the noir elements, notably including Jenkins’ cynical narration and Evan Avtal’s super-slick black-and-white cinematography.

David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake

It is often the case that those who are most convinced they can see clearly enough to decipher the hidden signs and cabals covertly governing the world are actually the most befogged by booze and controlled substances. That is not a matter of irony—it rather follows. Sam is a perfect example. The nothing slacker will interpret no end of clues hiding in plain sight all around us. Yet, somehow, they might just lead him to some answers regarding his missing neighbor in screenwriter-director David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake, (his follow-up to It Follows) which opens today in New York.

Sam has developed a huge crush on Sarah, who probably is not equally enamored with him, but she is friendly enough to get stoned together, which is encouraging. However, when he comes looking for her the next day, he finds Sarah and her roommates have vanished. The apartment complex manager is not inclined to be helpful, because Sam is seriously in arears on rent. Instead, Sam will get some crucial intel from a comic artist who draws Under the Silver Lake, a zine about Los Angeles’ secret history and urban legends, like a serial dog killer and the Owl’s Kiss, a black widow-like bird creature.

Sam’s investigation will take him to the exclusive corners of the town, where the super-rich and highly strange rub shoulders. He learns to interpret hobo symbols from the 1930s and the subliminal lyrics in a hipster band’s specialty EP pressing. Conveniently, many of the clues are buried in the ironic pop culture he is so familiar with. Nevertheless, the unfolding of the conspiracy’s details is oddly fascinating. Unfortunately, Mitchell’s ultimate rabbit hole is just too deep and outrageous. Most viewers will be incredulous to find out what it is really all about. Still, the getting there is surprisingly entertaining.

Indeed, Lake is a pleasant surprise, considering how divisively mixed critical opinion has been up to now. It does not hurt that Mitchell loads the film up with film noir conventions and homages. A detour to Griffith Park? But, of course. Frankly, some of the most important work comes from the art and design teams, who created the art of the Silver Lake zine, the vintage magazines, the hobo handbook, and the eccentric knick-knacks generously distributed throughout the featured apartments.

Andrew Garfield manages to be just the right degree of twitchy as Sam. We can easily envision him as one of the nutty commentators on Room 237, but he is hardly a sad, non-functional figure, like Mel Gibson’s character in Conspiracy Theory. Riley Keough also so convincingly balances charm, seductiveness, and mysteriousness, we can easily buy into Sam’s determination to find her. Plus, Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Grace Van Patten, Riki Lindhome, and Wendy Vanden Heuvel all make strong impressions as various women co-existing in Sam’s warped world.

Mitchell just takes the film a little too far, but the real news is just how much of Silver Lake genuinely works. It is hard to believe nobody has taken a crack at adapting Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49, but Mitchell’s film gives us a taste of what it might be like. Recommended for fans of LA noirs and conspiracy fiction, Under the Silver Lake opens today (4/19) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Ossang’s 9 Fingers

Brace yourself for some film noir that takes a detour into Samuel Butler terrain. Instead of Erehwon, a motley band of rogues sinks into the morass that is “Nowhereland.” Whatever and wherever that is, it sure isn’t utopia. The film is also far from perfect, but admirers of F.J. Ossang, the French poet and experimental filmmaker-provocateur will eat it up with a big spoon and ask for more. For us mere mortals, Ossang’s throwback film noir imagery provides the thin edge of the wedge that lets us get some kind of handle on 9 Fingers (trailer here), which opens today in New York, at Anthology Film Archives (also available on MUBI for a limited time only).

Fleeing an i.d. check at a lonely train station, Magloire stumbles across a dying man, who gives him a wad of bills, most likely illicitly acquired. That brings him into the crosshairs of the gang that did in the unnamed man, but instead of doing the same to Magloire, they recruit him into their ranks—after duly taking the cash. Unfortunately, the first heist they pull with Magloire goes down badly. This rather surprises the leader, because the intel supplied by the shadowy mastermind known as “The 9 Fingers” is usually infallible.

Forced to lay low, the gang books passage on a dodgy boat to South America. Unfortunately, when their ship hits the doldrums off the coast of Nowhereland, so does the film. Admittedly, Ossang’s narrative, if we can even use the term in this context, is baffling right from the start, but at least the first act zips along at a jaunty clip.

Regardless, Ossang is undeniably well versed in mystery, noir, caper, and seafaring adventure genres. Viewers can easily catch echoes of John Huston, Fritz Lang, and Jean-Pierre Melville films, as well as the novels of B. Traven, Eric Ambler, and Joseph Conrad. They are all there in the mix, but their influence eventually gets bogged down in all the talk about floating garbage.

It is a shame, because for a while, 9 Fingers is on pace to be one of the most entertaining films to ever get tagged with the “experimental” label. Paul Hamy is suitably cynical and hardboiled. Lisa Hartman also makes a highly credible femme fatale as Drella. However, the real stars are Simon Roca’s arresting black-and-white cinematography and the evocatively seedy urban locations. Serious genre fans will find it intriguing for a while, but diminishing marginal returns will kick in hard. Best saved for Ossang’s admirers, 9 Fingers opens today (11/2) at Anthology Film Archives, in conjunction with a retrospective of his film oeuvre.

Gemini: Making LA Noir Again

Breakout starlet Heather Anderson is one of the beautiful people, whereas her assistant Jill LeBeau is one of the little people. However, LeBeau really believed her boss when she called her a friend and made vague promises to start developing projects with her. That is why LeBeau is so disappointed to find she is suspected of murdering Anderson in Aaron Katz’s Gemini (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Instead of telling the director face-to-face she will not do re-shoots for his troubled film, thereby likely dooming the project, Anderson sends LeBeau in to do her dirty work for her. She is accustomed to such duties. She also tries to run interference with the stalkerish fan who crashes their table when the furious director storms off and her boss slinks in.

Clearly, Anderson depends on LeBeau for both emotional and organizational support. Their relationship is highly ambiguous and fraught with sexual overtones. Nevertheless, LeBeau must not show any signs of jealousy or possessiveness when partying with her boss and Tracy, Anderson’s secret model lover. Technically, they are still employer and employee, whereas jealousy and possessiveness are the specialty of Anderson’s very-ex boyfriend, Devin, whose house she still lives in.

You would think there would be plenty of suspects for Columbo-like Det. Edward Ahn to pester, but the murder weapon happens to be LeBeau’s off-the-books handgun, which has her prints all over it. Quite inconveniently, she even accidentally discharged it on the morning in question.

You have to give Katz credit, because Gemini just oozes noir style. Cinematographer Andrew Reed dazzles us with nocturnal neon and the glossy, glassy reflective surfaces of the characters’ sunny daylight hours. This is a vision of LA that Curtis Hanson and Roman Polanski would appreciate. Plus, Keegan DeWitt’s jazzy synth score gives it an appropriately freshened-up, ultra-now “crime jazz” vibe.

Lola Kirke is quite compelling as LeBeau, who suddenly must confront most of the assumptions that gave her life comfort and structure. She also forges some hard to define, yet undeniably potent chemistry with Zoë Kravitz’s Anderson. Kravitz’s performance is admittedly quite aloof and guarded, but such are the character’s requirements. John Cho adds some energy as the deceptively shrewd Det. Ahn, while Nelson Franklin and Michelle Forbes conspicuously steal their scenes as the director and agent who would not be out of place in Altman’s The Player.

For the most part, Gemini is an appealingly evocative Tinsel Town noir, but as in his Portland mumblecore noir, Cold Weather, Katz still has trouble wrapping things up in a convincing manner. Of course, it is the journey into the dark heart of La La Land that matters to genre fans, not the ultimate destination. Basically, it is Chet Baker cool, which is high praise, but not Miles Davis cool. Recommended for fans of LA noir, Gemini opens this Friday (3/30) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Melville’s Bob le Flambeur

Forget about An American in Paris and Amélie. Bob Montagné knows the real Montmartre. It is a place where you can find dodgy night clubs and all-night card games. The latter have always been Montagné’s bread and butter, but he has been on a ruinous losing streak lately. Out of desperation he will revert to his old criminal ways in Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic caper film, Bob le Flambeur (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, freshly restored in 4K.

Twenty years ago, Montagné did time for a hold-up, but he has been straight ever since. As a professional gambler, he still rubs shoulders with the underground, but he keeps his nose clean and maintains a non-snitching friendship with Inspector Ledru, a cop whose life Montagné once saved. For years, “Bob the High-Roller” made a good living off cards and dice, but his luck has turned. However, a casual conversation with his former safe-cracker crony gives him an idea.

An old associate now working as a croupier at the Deauville casino puts them onto the perfect time the hit the cash-rich safe. It will be a complicated job, requiring a large crew, but Montagné knows people. His first recruit will be his protégé, Paolo, but the aspiring dissolute character is distracted by his desire for Anne, a pretty but selfish femme fatale-runaway Montagné saved from Montmartre’s more exploitative elements. Marc the pimp, Ledru’s sleazy new informant is also sniffing around for something to satisfy the copper.

Flambeur is partly a heist film and partly a gambling movie, but it is all pure noir. Originally, Melville wanted Jean Gabin for the title role, but he settled for journeyman thesp Roger Duchesne, who is now best-remembered for Montagné—and justly so. It is a terrific, career-defining performance, filled with the sort of jaded, world weary insouciance only a middle-aged French leading man at the peak of his power could carry off. The mane is gray, but he is still cooler than Fonzie or even James Dean.

Isabelle Corey is also quite something else as Anne. She debuted in Flambeur, immediately becoming the French “It Girl” of the late 1950s, but after Vadim’s …And God Created Woman, nearly all of her subsequent work would be in Italian productions. Regardless, she and Duchesne have some wonderfully potent non-romantic chemistry going on.

Henri Decaë’s ultra-noir black-and-white cinematography is a joy to soak in. Plus, the moody soundtrack, heavy on vibes and boudoir saxophone, composed by French jazz musician and record label founder Eddie Barclay with bandleader Jo Boyer, is right on the money. The twists are deliciously ironic but perfectly fitting, so it seems bizarre in retrospect it was not an immediate hit in France and did not score a proper American release until 1982, especially since it is now considered a key influence for the French Nouvelle Vague. Very highly recommended, Bob le Flambeur opens this Friday (1/5) in New York, at Film Forum.

Explosion: Naturalistic Noir Goes Boom

In China’s western provinces, it is every man for himself. There is no OSHA regulating mine safety. The media doesn’t report on what goes on below ground and the cops only care about playing their own angles. When Zhao Yu-dong is set up to take the fall for a blasting disaster, the smart play is to take the hush money. It is not like he would even have to worry about jail time, because nobody would dare report the incident. However, the egregiousness of the “accident” and Zhou’s hardheadedness make him go lone wolf in Chang Zheng’s Explosion (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Zhao never wanted to be a blaster, but he followed in his father’s footsteps anyway. He certainly has enough experience to know one stick of dynamite should never produce the massive conflagration that resulted. He would like to start a new life with his fiancée Xiao Hong, but only a minimal amount of investigation turns up evidence of foul play. Before he knows what hit him, Zhao finds himself in the middle of a violent feud between two mining oligarchs. Li Yi was his predatory boss, but the vengeance-seeking Cheng Fei will become his main nemesis.

Of course, Zhao cannot count on any help from the cops, especially including his opportunistic former friend Xu Feng. They have already settled on him as their prime suspect for the subsequent murders they know about—and they have still only heard vague rumors of the original blasting mishap.

Explosion is a truly subversive film, because it presents itself to be an action movie chocked full of pyrotechnics, but it simultaneously delivers some very pointed social criticism, with respect to workers rights, workplace safety, public corruption, and to a much lesser extent, the despoilment of the environment (the latter is never directly addressed, but the arid ravaged landscapes silently speak volumes). Yet, it still functions as particularly lethal film noir, most definitely in the tradition of Black Coal, Thin Ice (bad things just seem to happen in and around Chinese coal mines).

Duan Yihong is terrific as Zhao. He projects a sense of danger even when he is getting the snot beat out of him, which happens often. Probably nobody is better at playing tough but vulnerable women than Yu Nan, who shines again as Xiao. There is also a wickedly effective tag-team of villains, including Cheng Taishen as the sinister mastermind, Cheng Fei, and Yu Ailei portraying his chief fixer.

Don’t worry, Chang does not let the social realism prevent him from blowing up a bunch of stuff. The wardrobe department also deserves credit for Li Yi’s flamboyantly evil-looking blue suede boots. This is a slam-bang thriller that should not be flying so low under the radar. Very highly recommended, Explosion is now playing in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Maigret Sets a Trap: Jean Gabin is Jules Maigret

He is often called “Inspector,” but Jules Maigret was in fact the Commissioner of the Paris Major Crimes Division. He is a sleuth, but also a bureaucrat. Some of the least dashing actors in history have played Maigret. In 1958, Jean Gabin still exuded plenty of screen presence, but it had a jaded world-weary edge that still suited Georges Simenon’s famous detective. When a serial killer starts goading him, the Commissioner goads him right back in Jean Delannoy’s nifty film noir, Maigret Sets a Trap (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

A ripper-style killer stalking full-figured brunettes has half the Parisian force on the streets, but when they still do not reach his latest body quickly enough, he leaves a message for “Monsieur” Maigret via a police call box. That “Mr.” business really sticks in the Commissioner’s craw. Recognizing his quarry’s arrogance, Maigret recruits a small-time informer to play it up big when he is arrested for the killer’s murders. He then floods the Fourth Arrondissement with decoys drawn from the police clerical pool to draw out the real killer under the watchful eyes of their back-up units.

It very nearly works, but the killer manages to slip away. Yet, the circumstances of his escape may yet give him away. However, their biggest break comes through chance. Ordered to follow anyone suspicious watching Maigret’s media circus, Det. Lagrume tails a very out-of-place and well-to-do housewife to an assignation with a gigolo that she seems weirdly disinterested in. It is not much to go on, but when Maigret pays a visit to Madame Yvonne Maurin and her squirrely husband Jean, Marcel, he immediately starts giving the couple the Columbo treatment.

During the course of Maigret, viewers learn all about the 1950s network of police call boxes in Paris and get a tutoring in criminal psychology and the dangers of over-indulgent parenting. Like many great film noirs, it has a real vintage modern feel, as well as a bountiful helping of nocturnal Parisian ambiance. In fact, Maigret would pair up nicely with other classic French noirs, even including the granddaddy of them all, Rififi.

Gabin is a terrific Maigret pitching his flinty interpretation of the Commissioner somewhere between the larger-than-life Charles Laughton in The Man on the Eiffel Tower and the down-trodden Harry Baur in A Man’s Neck. For extra-added steeliness, Lino Ventura appears in the relatively minor role as Inspector Torrence, one of Maigret’s “Faithful Four.” Again, like the best noir crime dramas, Maigret is fully stocked with colorful supporting performances, including Olivier Hussenot as the nebbish Lagrume and Gérard Séty as the sleazy ladies’ man, Jojo Vacher.

Arguably, Delannoy’s adapted screenplay, co-written with Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud and Michel Audiard, pushed the thematic envelope of its day with some surprisingly frank discussions of sexual hang-ups and psychological emasculation. Regardless, Maigret is a great deal of fun, but it really should be considered a procedural rather than a mystery, because we can tell the Commissioner is on the right track halfway through the second act. Very highly recommended, Maigret Sets a Trap opens this Friday (10/20) in New York, at the Metrograph.

Sidewalk ’17: The Weight

Missouri is the home of barbecue spare ribs and Provel cheese, so maybe it’s not surprising the villain of this Midwest border state noir is a weight loss counselor. She sells a healthy lifestyle and not so healthy drugs. Unfortunately, Thad Sitter got himself mixed up in her illicit business. When he suddenly disappears under mysterious circumstances, his ex-wife will defy the conspicuously unhelpful sheriff to find him in Thomas Rennier’s The Weight, which screens during the 2017 Sidewalk Film Festival.

Although Thad and Julie Sitter divorced, they still care deeply for each other. It was one of those complicated situations. Things weren’t so complicated between her and Sheriff Crane. She just dumped him—end of story. Of course, that means he has all kinds of bad attitude when she reports him missing. Sitter had been working for Gayle Benson’s weight loss clinic, where he served as the primary contact with her drug supplier. Benson sells a supposedly natural weight loss supplement to her clients that is apparently some kind of amphetamine compound. Obviously, this is problematic, but it also means it probably works. In any event, when her regularly supplier shorts them, Benson deals out some disproportionate payback, which Sitter is forced to clean-up. That also makes him a loose end.

When Benson hires a low-rent hitman with an ugly toupee to kill Sitter, he takes to the wind. Meanwhile, his wife’s Red Hot Riplet guzzling private investigator Jake Liebig starts nosing around the weight loss center for clues. Obviously, this will end badly for the majority of the characters, because that is how noirs roll. Unfortunately, the film craters after a nifty hardboiled second act.

Despite sharing little screen time together, Clayne Crawford and M.J. Brackin convince us the Sitters really do still care for each other. However, the real fun comes from Ken Hudson Campbell as Liebig, the private eye who looks rumpled and slovenly on a good day. Likewise, Heather Roop is entertainingly catty as the ruthless Benson.

The Weight has plenty of good Fargo-like small town skulduggery, but it collapses in a total face-palm moment that was probably intended send a message. Seriously, why? Alabamans can still enjoy their native son Crawford and the Missouri setting up to that point, but they will wish they could take the work-print back into the editing bay and recut it. Getting a mixed review, The Weight screens this coming Saturday night (8/26) as part of the Sidewalk Film Festival, in Birmingham.

AAIFF ’17: Absurd Accident

It’s a distinctly Chinese variant on film noir—the noodle shop noir. This snappy debut, following in the loose tradition of Zhang Yimou’s A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop and Yong Qing’s Chongqing Hot Pot has all the elements. There is a flirtatious wife, a jealous husband, a jewel heist, and a remote noodle shop inn.  Li Yuhe also pretty much throws in the kitchen sink for his first feature, Absurd Accident (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Asian American International Film Festival.

Everyone is conning someone in this provincial town. Yang Baiwan thinks his wife Ma Lilian is unfaithful, but he is really getting played by bogus doctor of Chinese medicine, who represents himself as the front man for a Triad assassin named “Mr. Marcus.” After Yang slips her a mickey and leaves to establish his alibi, the doctor arrives instead of Mr. Marcus, to start plundering the joint rather than bumping her off. However, when Ma prematurely comes to, she apparently kills her not-so would-be attacker in the ensuing struggle. Now she and the remorseful Yang have a body to dispose of.

Of course, it gets far more complicated. Two armed robbers, a country copper one night away from retirement, a gold-digger, and a clueless gamer she has mistaken for big game all lurch into the picture. The doctor’s body also keeps popping up where it is least expected and sometimes it is not entirely dead. All in all, it turns into an eight-car pile-up where noir intersects with farce.

Li is a little slow out of the blocks setting-up his characters and circumstances, but when Absurd gets going, it takes us off to the races with a high-performance sports car. One-darned-thing-after-another does not adequately describe the film’s gleeful sense of mischief. It is more like half-a-dozen-things-after-the previous-half-dozen-things.

Ye Gao is amazing covering the waterfront as Ma, ranging from shrewishness to vulnerability and finally resting at utter bewilderment. Yet, somehow Suxi Ren manages to go to further extremes as the man-hunting Miss Gu—she is some serious trouble. There is something about Xixu’s performance that counteracts any empathy we might feel for the sad sack Yang, as all the troubles in the world rain down on his stooped shoulders. That’s a good thing, because it lets us enjoy the show without guilt.

Absurd is wonderfully sly and inventive. Li directs the chaotic traffic like an old pro, while the ensemble keeps the dialogue zinging and all the balls in the air, like veterans of vintage Howard Hawks comedies. Very highly recommended, Absurd Accident will be a heck of a good time for all present when it screens tomorrow (8/3) at the New York Asia Society as part of this year’s AAIFF and it opens theatrically next Friday (8/11) in San Francisco, at the 4-Star Lee Neighborhood Theatre.

John Huston at UCLA: The List of Adrian Messenger

Think of it as the inverse opposite of Robert Altman’s The Player. The gimmick for this larky noir was the unrecognizable presence of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars playing minor roles under heavy make-up. It is the sort of in-joke that would appeal to its legendary director, John Huston. Best of all, the Hemingwayesque auteur had the chance to get in some fox-hunting during the production of The List of Adrian Messenger, which screens during the John Huston retrospective at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Sort of, but not really retired MI5 agent Anthony Gethryn is enjoying his new quasi-emeritus status with his friends, Lady Jocelyn Bruttenholm and her family, when her cousin, Adrian Messenger takes him into his confidence. He believes a sinister villain has been knocking off all the names on his titular list, for nefarious reasons he suspects, but does not care to reveal without proof. Tragically, before Gethryn can begin his inquiries regarding the individual names, Messenger is killed in plane bombing.

Obviously, Gethryn concludes Messenger was in fact the final name on his list of death. However, as luck would have it, there was a sole survivor of the bombing, who happened to hear Messenger’s dying words. Gethryn even knows him—at least his voice. He and Raoul Le Borg often communicated via shortwave during WWII as French Resistance and British Intelligence counterparts, so they inevitably team up to track down the killer.

Frankly, it is no secret who the killer is. It’s Kirk Douglas in various disguises. He even plays the nefarious George Brougham in his own, unaltered, cleft-jawed features. Playing against type, Douglas is an eerily charming sociopath, but his terrific villainous turn was overshadowed by the stunt cameos from Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, and Robert Mitchum (who really isn’t that hard to spot, possibly because he looked pretty much as he would in real life thirty years later).

George C. Scott is appealingly world-weary and cerebral as Gethryn, the spook-turned-sleuth. In fact, one of the greatest pleasures of the film is the sophisticated men-of-the-world buddy chemistry he forges with Jacques Roux’s Le Borg, who in turn develops some rather engagingly chaste romantic chemistry with the alluring yet ever so proper Lady Jocelyn, nicely played by Dana Wynter.

So yes, there is more than the gimmick to commend List to your attention. In fact, it boasts some of the best fox-hunting scenes ever shot. Old Man Huston wouldn’t settle for anything less. As it happens, those scenes were filmed in Ireland, where any subsequent remake would also probably be forced to go, due to the UK’s misconceived fox-hunting ban. As a further bonus, List also features one of Jerry Goldsmith’s best scores, which manages to be both zippy and upbeat, but somehow noirish as well. Recommended for fans of Huston’s wry capers, The List of Adrian Messenger fittingly screens with the complete restored print of Beat the Devil this coming Friday (6/30), at the Billy Wilder Theater.

The Frontier: In the Noir Tradition

Business is slower at Luanne’s greasy spoon than at the diner in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Like the eatery in Petrified Forest, it seems to attract more criminals than customers. Laine is one of the former, but at least there are extenuating circumstances surrounding her crime. The rest of the bunch are just back-stabbing thieves, but they keep things interesting in Oren Shai’s The Frontier (trailer here), which releases today on digital VOD, from Kino Lorber.

Laine is clearly on the run, but the motel-diner called The Frontier might look like a good place to hide out. Frankly, she is not inclined to stay put for very long, until she hears two guests talking about a delivery of laundered money. Hmm, maybe that could be the proceeds of the big heist that went down a few towns over. That gives her an incentive to accept Luanne’s job offer. Of course, there is also the recent murder of a local political bigwig’s son. Everything is definitely connected, so do not trust anyone.

Although she is definitely an ambiguous anti-heroine, Laine will be the closest thing we have to a rooting interest. Her boss Luanne (at least for a day or two), is a former Hollywood starlet who never made it, but still drifts along in a haze like Norma Desmond. Flynn, the Michael York-esque guest is a lot more fun to have around than Gloria, his mentally unstable arm-candy. However, Lee, the closest thing to the boss of the gang, is just mean as a snake. Throw them all into the same room and there is bound to be trouble.

Frontier is gritty neo-noir thriller that wears its Jim Thompson and James Cain influences on its sleeve. It has an unplaceable period feel, but cinematographer Jay Keitel’s pulpy, Hopper-ish look could fit anytime from the early sixties through the late seventies.

Jocelin Donahue probably continues to be best known for House of the Devil, despite working steadily since then. However, this could be the film that breaks her out. She is terrific as the squirrely Laine. She covers tremendous ground, acting the vulnerable babe-in-the-woods one minute and a scheming femme fatale the next. Jamie Harris is just a boozy trip as the roguish Flynn. Jim Beaver makes a seriously evil cuss as bad old Lee. Somehow, even in a film like this, Kelly Lynch seems to overplay Luanne’s Blanche DuBois act. However, AJ Bowen adds some destabilizing arsenic as the erratic Officer Gault.

Seeing the relatively unheralded Frontier might give those of us who were too young to have been there an idea what is was like when the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple just sprang up, seemingly out of nowhere. Shai had the benefit of an experienced, indie-centric ensemble, but it is still likely to catch most folks by surprise. It looks great and clearly enjoys its twisty ways. Highly recommended for noir fans, The Frontier launches today on digital VOD platforms, including iTunes, with a DVD release scheduled for December 6^th.

Tomu Uchida at MoMA: Straits of Hunger

We’re not saying Tomu Uchida’s three-hour film noir masterpiece is dark, but it starts with a ferry disaster killing hundreds of innocent people. Those currents off the coast of Hokkaido are so treacherous, they even spit up two extra bodies. It turns out they were ex-cons, mostly likely responsible for a lethal home invasion. Det. Yumisaka will pursue the “third man” like Javert in Les Miserables. The cop from The Fugitive might be an even more apt comparison. Although Takichi Inukai (if that is his real name) is not a one-armed man, he has a crushed finger that definitely counts as an identifying characteristic in Uchida’s Straits of Hunger (a.k.a. A Fugitive from the Past), which screens as part of MoMA’s ongoing retrospective of the major Japanese auteur.

During the immediate post-war, black market years, it was not just those straits that were hungry. Nevertheless, Inukai seems genuinely distressed by the fate of his traveling companions and also their victims. With the cops out in full force, Inukai takes refuge with hostess-oiran-prostitute-borderline dominatrix Yae Sugito, who gives him a bit of hard time, but rather takes a shine to the rough but shy character. The feeling is somewhat mutual judging from the whopper of a tip the mystery man left behind.

As Yumiska spends years following-up false leads, Sugito uses Inukai’s money to pay off her family’s debts and start leading a relatively straight life in Tokyo. Ironically, she will return to her former profession, preferring the stability of life with her new paternalist mom-and-pop employers. Alas, the government eventually decides to be progressive and reformist by shuttering legal houses of prostitution. Forced to make yet another new start, Sugito happens to notice a provincial philanthropist’s picture in the newspaper. Mr. Kyôichirô Tarumi certainly bears a strong resemblance to the man responsible for her nest egg, who has taken on almost saintly status in her own head.

It is not hard to understand why Straits (or Fugitive) is regarded in Japan as one of the finest Japanese films of all time. It truly combines elements of the sympathetic (if not wholly innocent) fugitive thriller, in the tradition of Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, with the sweeping scope and tragedy of Les Mis (which Uchida adapted straight-up in 1931). His use of gritty widescreen 16mm also gives it a 1960s docu-drama vibe. Yet, what makes the film so appealingly idiosyncratic is the delight Uchida takes in breaking all the rules. Inukai disappears for a long period of time, allowing the second movement to become an empathetic woman’s story, roughly akin to Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.

Sachiko Hidari is remarkably sensitive and forceful as Yae, commanding the screen and keeping viewers tightly focused even when the noir skullduggery is at a low ebb. Rentarô Mikuni is indeed generous with the spotlight, but he brings some seriously hardnosed intensity in the first and third acts. Noir fans will also appreciate Junzaburô Ban’s wheezy Yamisaka, who projects world-weary fatalism worthy of Inspector Maigret.

Aside from the three-hour running time, it is hard to puzzle out Straits’ under-screened and unsung status outside of Japan. Perhaps Uchida’s lurid color washes used during times of extreme psychological stress have not aged so well, but the exquisite work of Hidari and Mikuni gives this ironic tale the ring and heft of classical tragedy. Very highly recommended, Straits of Hunger screens again next Sunday, November 6, as part of MoMA’s Tomu Uchida retrospective.

Gaumont at MoMA: Un Temoin dans la Ville

In French film noir, nobody personifies bad karma like Lino Ventura. Unfortunately, his characters were not immune from the payback they dispensed. That is true in spades for the vengeance-seeking Ancelin. On the streets of Paris, what comes around goes around, especially after hours in Édouard Molinaro’s Un Témoin dans la Ville (trailer here), which screens during MoMA’s retrospective tribute to the storied French film production house Gaumont.

Well-heeled lothario Pierre Verdier had been carrying on an affair with Ancelin’s wife until he tired of her and threw her to her death from a speeding train. He managed to wriggle out of a formal prosecution, but he will not escape Ancelin’s rough justice. The steely long haul trucker stages Verdier’s (involuntary) suicide to the last detail, but he did not know the cad had called for a cab. Unfortunately, that means Lambert the cabbie can place him at the scene. Reluctantly, Ancelin starts stalking the witness, just as Lambert’s courtship of Liliane, a company radio dispatcher starts to bear romantic fruit.

Témoin (or Witness in the Night) is based on a novel by the collaborative partners Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, as were Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique. Frankly, it is hard to figure why this film doesn’t rank alongside the latter, because it is a wickedly lean and mean noir thriller. As Ancelin, Ventura is at the peak of his hardnosed, taciturn powers. He was born to play this sort of role and Molinaro brought out the best in him. However, Franco Fabrizi (later to be seen in Fellini’s I Vitelloni and Ginger and Fred) and Sandra Milo (Fellini’s 8½ and Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques) are also completely engaging as the amorously bantering Lambert and Liliane (no slouches in this cast). The unexpected charm of their earthy chemistry really sneaks up on you and adds an additionally tragic layer to the naturalistic, street-level thriller.

In fact, Témoin offers a fascinating time-capsule snapshot of nocturnal Parisian life, circa 1959. Unlike the rather transient nature of the cab driving work today, Lambert and his colleagues (most definitely including the white coat-wearing ladies working the radios) seem to lead a strangely insular and tribal existence. They work together, drink together, and the lucky ones pair-up together, like Liliane and Lambert. Of course that means when one of their own is threatened, they instinctively respond in kind.

Even by high film noir standards, the black-and-white cinematography of Henri Decaï is a thing of beauty. It is also matched by the vintage “crime jazz” soundtrack, featuring French tenor player Barney Wilen (somewhat familiar to American fans through his work on the Miles Davis soundtrack for Elevator to the Gallows and the Jazz Messengers’ soundtrack for Dangerous Liaisons), along with visiting Americans Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Kenny Clarke and drums, and Duke Jordan and piano. It sounds consciously inspired by the Davis session from the previous year, with Dorham’s trumpet more prominently featured than Wilen’s tenor. It is tasty and very effective underscoring the skullduggery on screen (particularly some of Clarke’s percussion solos), but it is not quite a classic on the level of Gallows.

How is this not a more famous movie? There is so much talent in Témoin working at the top of their games and collaborating together with perfect compatibility. This is a terrific film every jazz and noir fan should see. Very highly recommended, Un Témoin dans la Ville screens again this Tuesday (9/6) at MoMA, as part of the Gaumont: Cinema pout tout le Monde series.

Sudden Fear: Joan Crawford and Jack Palance in Romantic San Francisco

Myra Hudson is a hit Broadway playwright by day and a wealthy San Francisco heiress-socialite by night—or vice versa. Lester Blaine is a talented stage actor, but he makes better dough as a smooth-talking adventurer. Hudson fires Blaine from her next box office triumph because she does not believe he is seductive enough, but then falls hopelessly under his spell. However, when Hudson discovers her husband’s true nature things get classically noir in David Miller’s digitally restored Sudden Fear (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Hudson is used to getting her way, so she pulls her playwright’s prerogative and cans Blaine during rehearsals. Blaine is used to having his way, so he seduces Hudson when they both happen to find themselves on the same train bound Frisco. At first, they seem like a happy couple, despite their awkward history and vintage early 1950s separate sleeping quarters. However, when Blaine’s femme fatale ex Irene Neves shows up, she threatens to destabilize everything. They have some rather scandalous personal and professional history together, but the worst part is Blaine is still hung up on her.

Neves has been toying with Junior Kearney, the son and junior partner of Myra Blaine nee Hudson’s attorney and has discovered some very alarming news about her will. Ironically, she intended to add codicils that would do right by Mr. Blaine, but the two fortune hunters never haear about that. However, thanks to the heiress-playwright’s automatic dictation machine, she knows they intend to kill her over the weekend, before she can sign on the dotted line on Monday. Cat-and-mouse business duly commences.

It seems a bit strange Sudden Fear is not more widely remembered, because it is a nifty little thriller that earned Joan Crawford an Oscar nomination for a classically overwrought (in a good way) Joan Crawford performance. Let’s just say she does not handle the discovery of Blaine’s betrayal well at all. Of course, it is great fun to watch her segue from twitchy meltdown to stone cold resolve.

Yet, Jack Palance (also Oscar nominated for what was only his third film role) is an equally big screen presence as Blaine. He is lunky and sinister, but there is also something sympathetically vulnerable about him. In contrast, Gloria Grahame’s Neves is just pure unadulterated bad news. A young Mike Connors is serviceable enough playing as Junior Kearney, while he was still billed as “Touch Connors” (MST3K fans will remember that unfortunate stage name from Swamp Diamonds, with Beverly Garland). For extra added footnote interest, the senior Kearney is played by Bruce Bennett (a.k.a. Herman Brix), an Olympic shot put silver medalist, who was originally slated to play Tarzan in the Weissmuller-MGM franchise and would assume the role in a dodgy independent production loosely affiliated with Edgar Rice Burroughs. He’s fine too.

Crawford and Palance both do their thing, which guarantees Sudden Fear will be good back-stabbing fun. Miller was something of a studio journeyman, but he shows flashes of stylish inspiration throughout the 1952 film. He also shrewdly capitalizes on the San Francisco-Northern California locales, sometimes giving the audience flashbacks (or rather flashforwards) to Hitchcock’s 1958 classic, Vertigo. It is a juicy dark thriller that deserves a second lease on critical life. Highly recommended, Sudden Fear opens this Friday (8/12) in New York, at Film Forum.

The American Side: Niagara Noir

If you think Niagara Falls is a romantic spot, you probably haven’t seen Niagara with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten. Hopefully, you are also unfamiliar with local P.I. Charlie Paczynski, who specializes in the sleaziest divorce cases possible. When the stripper-partner he employs for honey trap scams is rather inconveniently murdered, the Polish detective will blunder into a far-reaching conspiracy in Jenna Ricker’s The American Side (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Paczynski and “Kat” were basically running a blackmail operation, until one of her “dates” up and killed her. He liked her way more than Sam Spade liked Miles Archer, so he duly follows the clues to a suspicious character named Tom Soberin. When his chief suspect takes a swan dive off the Falls, Paczynski realizes there is a larger scheme at work. It turns out Soberin was once an employee of an experimental energy firm, whose co-founders have had a falling out. It is unclear which faction he ultimately chose, but he supposedly had an affair with Emily Chase, the younger, far less stable but much more alluring sister of Borden Chase, who largely won the corporate power struggle.

Sterling Whitmore, Borden Chase’s ostensible partner, serves up cryptic clues to Paczynski while he develops a high tech barrel sufficiently reinforced to provide safe passage over the American side of the Falls. Evidently, people have made the ill-advised trip on the more forgiving Canadian side, but not from New York. In fact, Paczinski will have no shortage of dubious sources, including a fishy FBI agent, a Serbian spook, and “the Eavesdropper.”

Side starts out as a nifty old school noir that fully capitalizes on the faded glory of its Buffalo and Niagara Falls locales. However, viewers better hold on to their hats when wildly speculative Nikola Tesla schematics enter the picture. Holy death rays, Mike Hammer. It is so crazy, it kind of works.

Co-screenwriter Greg Stuhr has the right kind of nervy presence and caustic attitude for a hardnosed antihero like Paczynski. Alicja Bachleda (so terrific in Ondine) smolders up the lens as Nikki Meeker, the Tesla expert in distress. Matthew Broderick’s Borden Chase will be nobody’s idea of a sinister heavy, but as Emily Chase, Camilla Belle is a hot mess in the grand tradition of Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep. However, nobody can out-noir Robert Forster doing his thing as Whitmore, even when Robert Vaughn and Joe Grifasi (FX the movie) pop up in cameos.

Cinematographer Frank Barrera gives it all a suitably murky, noir glow, while David Shire (whose soundtrack for the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three remains a perennial collector favorite) reinforces the mood with his insinuating score. Like The Big Sleep referenced above, The American Side is a fun film, even when it doesn’t make perfect sense. Recommended for genre fans, it opens this Friday (4/29) in New York, at the IFC Center.

SFIFF ’16: Cast a Dark Shadow

Communication is important in a marriage, even if you are a gold-digging adventurer. Just ask Edward “Teddy” Bare. Upon learning his much older, richer wife was about to sign a new will, he helped the old dear to her eternal rest. Alas, the dearly departed Monica “Mony” Bare wanted to cut him in rather than out of the money. Bare finds himself in a tight financial spot, but he assumes his smarmy charm will continue to provide in Lewis Gilbert’s digitally restored British noir, Cast a Dark Shadow (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival.

Bare is no gentleman, that’s for sure. Therefore, Mony’s snobby attorney Phillip Mortimer immediately suspects he staged her accident, which of course he did. Inconveniently, he stands to inherit dashed little under the terms of the original will. To make matters worse, he seems to have had a genuine affection for his late wife. In fact, his du Maurier-esque devotion to her memory will further complicate his second marriage to Freda Jeffries.

Jeffries is no Mony, that’s equally clear. She got her money marrying-up and she aims to keep it. Yet, despite her street-smarts, she fell for Bare and she is still swoony for him, in her own tough-talking way. When Bare befriends yet another single lady of means, it brings out her jealous nature. However, Bare will not let that deter him from Charlotte Young’s money.

It is rather baffling that Shadow is not more universally and volubly beloved by film noir fans, because it is a nifty little Deathtrap-style thriller. John Cresswell’s adaptation of the stage play Murder Mistaken by Janet Green (who would later serve as screenwriter on several of Dirk Bogarde’s “social issue” films) keeps the basic six-character, one-set structure, but opens it up a little. As a result, we get a night club scene featuring former Ted Heath band vocalist Lita Roza’s sly, swinging rendition of “Leave Me Alone.”

Bogarde played plenty of sociopaths in his career, but few were as sleazy good fun as Teddy Bare. He is clearly all kinds of off, but still perversely charismatic. Yet, Margaret Lockwood constantly calls and raises him as the brassy Jeffries. Mona Washbourne is indeed naively charming as dear old Mony, but Kathleen Harrison is a little cringey as Emmie, the easily manipulated housekeeper.

Jack Asher (who would become a regular early Hammer Horror cinematographer) gives it a wonderfully sinister noir look that should delight genre fans. Every piece of bric-a-brac perfectly sets the mood and gives us the right sense of place. Again, it just seems bizarre Cast a Dark Shadow does not get more love from the noir establishment. Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates classic cinema, it screens Saturday (4/23) and Sunday (4/24) during this year’s SFIFF.

Argentine Noir: Never Open that Door

It is a two-part triptych. Obviously, it was intended to be a trio of Cornell Woolrich (a.k.a. William Irish) short story adaptations, but in early 1950s Argentina, there was even greater pressure on filmmakers to conform to manageable running times. At least Carlos Hugo Christensen’s original vision was more or less preserved. One segment became its own film and the other two were released as a strange matching pair. Yet, the parallels between the constituent stories work rather well together in Never Open that Door, which screens as part of MoMA’s current retrospective, Death is My Dance Partner: Film Noir in Postwar Argentina.

Once the seventy-three minute If I Die Before I Wake was split off, Door became a lean and most definitely mean eighty-five minutes of hard-bitten noir goodness. The first segment is very much in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the various incarnations of Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, but it also has a number of night club scenes for extra swinging fun.

In “Someone’s on the Phone,” grown siblings Raul and Luisa have a wildly dysfunctional, vaguely incestuous relationship. They both live in their absentee parents’ spectacularly cinematic town house (that sort of looks like a Trader Vic’s as designed by le Corbusier), but lead separate wastrel lives. However, their privileged existence is shattered when Luisa’s mounting gambling debts culminate in her suicide. Bitterly regretting his own ineffectualness, Raul sets out to kill her tormenting mystery caller. Irony will be involved.

Many consider “Phone” the weakest of the two-film anthology, but it might be the most stylish of the lot. The big band Latin jazz is hot and Pablo Tabernero’s slick noir cinematography is super-cool. Production designer Gori Muñoz and his team also crafted an ominously decadent environment perfect for the genre.

Family relations remain problematic in “The Hummingbird Comes Home.” Blind Rosa is a virtuous widow, who lives with her devoted niece and memories of her beloved son Daniel. After eight years without contact, Daniel suddenly returns, along with two gangster associates (one of whom is unlikely to see the sun rise) and a bullet-riddled car. Despite her love for her son, Rosa is not blind to the circumstances. To save her niece, she will turn the tables on the criminals during the dark of night—when the advantage shifts to her, assuming everything goes as planned.

Once Mother Rosa kills the power, Christensen stages some wonderfully tense and skillful cat-and-mouse skulking sequences. He and Tabernero evoke a sense of her unsighted POV, while clearly conveying the action to viewers. These are scenes that are worth close study. Of course, Ilde Pirovano is the crucial X-factor as the sainted but resourceful mother.

Structurally, it is a little weird to have the considerably shorter “Phone” stuck together with the longer “Hummingbird,” but they are both crackerjack noirs, so they never clash in terms of tone or aesthetics. It is still tough to beat Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid, but Never Open that Door definitely ranks close behind amongst the many film and television adaptations of Woolrich/Irish stories and novels. Happily it has been preserved and partially restored for future fans by the Film Noir Foundation. Highly recommended, Never Open that Door screens again this Tuesday afternoon (2/16), at MoMA.

Unknown Welles: Journey Into Fear [Preview Cut]

In the Orson Welles’ filmography, this 1943 espionage thriller always has an asterisk next to the title in fans’ minds. Throughout his life, Welles insisted it was directed by his friend Norman Foster, except when discussing the scenes he helmed. Thanks to the misadventure of It’s All True, much of the daily directorial work was indeed left to Foster (who would make a bit of a name for himself with some nifty little noirs), but the Eric Ambler adaptation definitely bears the Welles stamp. Its ragged narrative edges also reflect RKO’s desire to edit it down under seventy minutes. Oh, but there were longer versions screened for preview audiences and European markets. The intrepid Munich Filmmuseum tracked down the various cuts as well as the shooting script to reconstruct a more coherent and surprising funny super-cut of Foster’s Journey Into Fear, which screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

It is the early “Phony War” days of WWII, when Britain still expected to forge an alliance with Turkey. It was therefore all fine and dandy that munitions expert Howard Graham was in Istanbul working to rearm the Turkish navy. Graham and his wife Stephanie are due to sail to Batumi (which really doesn’t make sense, since the USSR was allied with Hitler at this time, but so be it), but they will be waylaid by a convoluted conspiracy. Kopeikin, a corrupt representative of Graham’s company drags him to a nightclub, ostensibly to meet the alluring dancer Josette Martel. Through blind luck, Graham escapes an assassination attempt that claims the life of magician Oo Lang Sang instead.

For his own safety mind you, Colonel Haki of Turkish intelligence has Graham whisked away on a dodgy tramp steamer, assuring the baffled American he will personally see to his wife’s safety. In fact, one of the rediscovered scenes suggests Haki does indeed give Ms. Graham some ambiguously special attention. (Let’s not forget, Welles was quite the ladies’ man, who was once married to Rita Hayworth. Plus, Haki’s fur hat looks smashing.) Meanwhile, Howard Graham is spending quite a bit of time with Martel on that dodgy steamer, because she is the only passenger he really doesn’t think is out to kill him.

Journey has always been an entertaining yarn, but the more complete version makes considerably more sense. Even though the Filmmuseum restoration team was again forced to resort to intertitles in places, the reconstructed preview cut gives us a fuller sense of the wit and irony of the script co-written by Welles and star Joseph Cotton. It is rather delightfully mordant.

As Graham, Cotton prefigures many of the classic everyman Hitchcokian protagonists as well as his turn as Holly Martins in the even more classic The Third Man. He credibly portrays Graham’s evolution from clueless passivity to resentful exasperation. While his screen time as Haki is limited, Welles made the most of it. He was also clearly feeling the power of the hat. Everett Sloane also adds some comedic noir flavor as the dubious Kopeikin, while Dolores del Rio’s Martel brings plenty of femme and a hint of fatale.

What RKO did to their Welles catalog makes you want to pull your hair out. A longer, smoother cut could have become an iconic film, much like Lady from Shanghai and The Third Man. Even with intertitles, the Filmmuseum version is the best way to see it, so hopefully it will be more widely screened in the future. Of course, it is a perfect selection for To Save and Project, which concludes its Unknown Welles sidebar tomorrow night at MoMA.