Born to Be Bad

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Edith Sommer

Adaptation: Charles Schnee

Additional Dialogue: Robert Soderberg and George Oppenheimer

Director: Nicholas Ray

Cast: Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott, Joan Leslie, Mel Ferrer

Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca

Music: Frederick Hollander

Studio: RKO

Release: July 15, 1950

Christabel Caine Carey has all the makings of a great femme fatale. First, there’s her name. She’s gorgeous, manipulative and knows how to get her claws deep in a number of men. After arriving in San Francisco, she is almost instantly seducing a rich man whose fiancé is giving Christabel free room and board, while also sleeping with a tortured artist on the side. But despite an awesome title, “Born to Be Bad” never quite takes Christabel into the “fatale” part of the name. She doesn’t stab anyone or throw someone downstairs… or even plant murder in the mind of her lover. What a shame.

That’s because “Born to Be Bad” isn’t really noir – it’s a melodrama that, like “Daisy Kenyon” or “Queen Bee,” many critics and historians lump into the genre because its creative team is a veritable murderer’s row of noir icons. Ray! Musuraca! Fontaine! Ryan! It sure feels like it should be noir, even though it isn’t. And yet, here we are.

Christabel is played by Joan Fontaine, and as the film opens, she moves to San Francisco to live with Donna (Joan Leslie), a book editor doing a favor for her boss and Christabel’s uncle John (Harold Vermilyea). Donna is engaged to the super rich Curtis (Zachary Scott), and soon Christabel is planting seeds to break the two apart and seduce Curtis. But Christabel also finds herself attracted to one of Donna’s writers Nick (Robert Ryan) in a totally carnal way. Also in play is artist Gobby (Mel Ferrer), who seems to be capable of seeing through Christabel’s sweet surface.

Screenwriter Edith Sommer (“The Best of Everything”) places all the pieces on the chessboard quite well, and her strength is in bringing depth to characters that would otherwise be bland ciphers. She also does backflips to try and stretch the narrative and make sure none of the ensemble seem stupid for believing Christabel for as long as they do, which is appreciated. In addition, she deserves a lot of credit for Gobby (despite that horrible name), who is clearly gay and treated as just another character instead of a walking cliché.

That said, she is obviously having the most fun with the Christabel and Nick pairing, which is toxic but impossible to look away from. The first time we meet Nick, he comes off like a complete asshole, but soon Christabel all but says “Hold my beer” and essentially becomes Satan. Sommer gives the best line to Nick: “I love you so much I wish I liked you!” It certainly helps that Fontaine and Ryan have off-the-charts chemistry with one another – both when they spar verbally and when seducing one another. Yes, this film takes things all the way to the edge in terms of the production code.

When not with Ryan, Fontaine’s performance is mostly good… though she goes over the top with her wickedness a few too many times. Particularly in the corny glances and smiles she gives when her evil plans work out. Leslie, Ferrer and Vermilyea are all very good, leveling up their performances thanks to the witty dialogue. But Scott? He’s awful. He has zero chemistry with Leslie or Fontaine and reacts in most scenes like a young boy who has broken a toy. At the end when he leaves Christabel and goes back to Donna, I was all but screaming “Girl, you can do so much better!”

Iconic director Nicholas Ray made this between his two best noir films: “In a Lonely Place” and “On Dangerous Ground.” In those, he was delicate about the romance aspects and careful to make us care about everyone. Here there is never a moment where he allows Christabel to show any kind of humanity, even if there were opportunities in the script for them. It’s a slight missed opportunity because the ending might have been stronger had we felt a little bad for her as she is thrown out of her own home with nothing but her furs. But aside from that, Ray guides the production with his usual sure-handedness.

He was working with noir all-timer Nicholas Musuraca, who lensed classic noir films like “The Spiral Staircase” and “The Seventh Victim.” There aren’t many shadows to be found because, again, this isn’t really a noir film. But I love how he and Ray frame the climax, where all of Christabel’s lies come tumbling down before her. Instead of going close, the duo mostly keep the frame far back – showing the emptiness of the mansion and the world she has built for herself. It’s a lovely passage.

“Born to Be Bad” is certainly a good movie with some beautiful writing within it… but if you’re looking for a noir fix, you’re going to walk away wanting. Still, there’s plenty here to satisfy you if you’re a fan of any of the filmmakers, and if you are reading this article, chances are you are one.

Score: ***1/2

Suspicion

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison and Alma Reville

Based on the novel “Before the Fact” by Francis Iles

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Nigel Bruce

Cinematography: Harry Stradling

Music: Franz Waxman

Studio: RKO

Release: November 14, 1941

Awards: Fontaine won Best Actress. The film was nominated for Best Picture along with “The Maltese Falcon” and “Citizen Kane,” but all lost to “How Green Was My Valley.” It was nominated for Best Dramatic Score along with “Citizen Kane,” and “Ladies in Retirement,” but all lost to “All That Money Can Buy.”

“Suspicion” is wonderful up until the final seven minutes, at which point it implodes. What happens at the climax is so repugnant that it’s perhaps the only example I can think of where the finale of a film completely destroys any enjoyment that I had in what proceeded it. Here is a movie made by a bunch of wonderful filmmakers… and I blame none of them for the finale because it was forced on them by the studio.

But before we get to that ending, let’s talk about the beginning.

Joan Fontaine stars as Lina, an introvert from an upper middle-class family who meets professional asshole Johnnie (Cary Grant). After overhearing that her parents think she’ll never marry or find happiness, she impulsively marries Johnnie. The relationship is toxic from the start – Johnnie mentally abuses her (his pet nickname for her is Monkey Face), manipulates her at every turn, lies all the time about things both small and important, steals from her, cannot keep a job, gambles and insults her savagely if she questions any of her actions. In one line that especially hasn’t aged well, Johnnie says “you’re the first woman I met who meant yes when she said ‘yes.’” Lina struggles with the relationship, choosing to forgive him time and time again because she keeps telling herself she loves him and, despite every action we see from fade in to fade out proving the contrary, he loves her. Johnnie has a friend, the bumbling Dr. Watson… er… Beaky (Nigel Bruce), who becomes business partners with Johnnie and then mysteriously dies. Soon Lina is struggling with her suspicions – in addition to everything else, could Johnnie be a murderer as well? And if so, is she next?

Up until its last moments, “Suspicion” is a fascinating, deeply impactful portrait of a woman who keeps digging her own grave… a grave she is more and more aware of with each passing moment. She has a hundred opportunities to stop her own abuse and demise, but she chooses none of them. Not because she is weak, but because she tells herself she is… and because she insists to herself that this type of behavior isn’t as horrifying as it is. There’s a moment right before a family death where Lina is about to leave Johnnie, and even in her goodbye note we can sense her bargaining with herself about how much to rip into the man who is destroying her life and happiness. It’s not as subtle as the gaslighting Ingrid Bergman’s character suffered through in the masterpiece “Gaslight” – instead Johnnie’s sins are right there out in the open – which makes them even more insidious in many ways, because he knows he can get away with it.

Fontaine and Grant were well-cast in their roles. Fontaine seems to be doing an extension of her character from “Rebecca,” which is not a bad thing at all. Grant is one of the most interesting leading men in Hollywood history because he had no problem going to extremes in his craft; he could be charming or bookish to the point of parody… but he could also turn dark and twisted. Hitchcock would harness this power brilliantly in his masterpiece “Notorious,” where we hate his character’s actions but also root for him to save the heroine. Here, there’s an air of desperation in his charm you don’t see in his other performances. More than that, the moments he drops any guise of kindness and just attacks Lina mentally are rightly upsetting. Fontaine won an Oscar for the role – she should have won for “Rebecca” – but Grant’s performance is the more impressive of the two in retrospect.

Hitchcock used long takes elsewhere in his career, and those are much more famous. But his use of them here is ingenious, oftentimes cornering Lina physically and metaphorically in them. He uses them to explore the awkwardness of the breaking relationship first, then keeps the camera on the awfulness of Johnnie… climaxing in the moment he brings her a poisoned glass of milk before bed, which Hitchcock placed a lightbulb in for maximum effect. Well, except the milk wasn’t apparently poisoned.

Because the last few minutes of the movie fuck everything up.

Hitchcock and his screenwriters Samson Raphaelson (“The Shop Around the Corner”), Joan Harrison (“Dark Waters”) and Alma Reville (“Shadow of a Doubt”) had originally intended for Johnnie to murder Lina with the milk after she had written a letter to her family explaining her suspicions. The film was to end with Johnnie mailing the letter, her final wish before she drank the milk and died. That was a perfect ending, tragic in all the right ways and paying off all the themes of abuse and isolation that the film sets up. But the studio balked, insisting Grant was too big of a star to be a murderer and insisting on a rejiggered ending where Johnnie saves her from falling out of her car and off a cliff and then admitting he’s a terrible husband (just not a murderer) before Lina takes him back yet again.

Pardon me while I go vomit.

The saddest part of the new ending is that it resolves nothing. Johnnie is a known liar, so when he says his alibi for the night Beaky died, there is no reason for the audience or Lina to believe him. And how are we supposed to know whether or not he’ll simply kill her off moments after the film fades to black? It’s an ending, but not a conclusion to the film we saw – just another symptom of the toxic relationship. Just another moment in a doomed relationship.

More than that, what infuriates me is that, retrospectively, the film now is about a pathetic woman who was silly to ever doubt her husband. We can wave away all of Johnnie’s sins because he wasn’t an actual killer… and Lina should have put up with them without ever complaining or being suspicious about his activities. That’s the lesson the movie now leaves its audience with – and I am getting angry again just writing about it. This could have been a classic Hitchcock… certainly one of his darkest, boldest films. But instead we get a pile of hot trash that is great until it is very, very terrible.

Score: *

Rebecca

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison

Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson

Cinematography: George Barnes

Music: Franz Waxman

Studio: Selznick International Pictures/United Artists

Release: March 21, 1940

As things have progressed here, I’ve started to do small mini-Odysseys, like my recent ones focusing on the actors Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield. I can’t wait to get into Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford coming up, but there are directors where I want to make sure I cover all of their major noir work as well. With certain people like Fritz Lang, the list is fairly clear what I need to cover… but as I dive into a mini-Odyssey covering the noir films of Alfred Hitchcock, the question quickly becomes which of his movies are noir, really?

Sure, a few of his works, most of which I’ve already covered like “Strangers on a Train” and “Rope,” are very obviously noir, but there are a large number where they feels like noir, but only if you squint. Hitchcock is a master of mixing genres and tones – “Psycho” (which I will be covering) is as much a noir as it is a slasher film and a dark comedy… three genres that don’t easily co-exist. “Rebecca” is certainly another example of a sorta-kinda-maybe noir. It certainly deals with several thematic ideas often explored in noir, but it also feels more gothic in its shadows and more romantic in its shading. It’s an important film for Hitchcock – his first big American production, his first collaboration with producer David O. Selznick (and, spoiler alert, his only successful one) and his only film to win Best Picture. So it’s important to cover, even though I honestly don’t think I would be focusing on it in this Odyssey had it not been for the Hitchcock connection.

Our hero is a young woman (Joan Fontaine) who is never named in the film, but I’m going to refer to her as Mrs. DeWinter because, before the end of act one, she marries the uber-rich Maxim DeWinter (Laurence Olivier). He’s far above her station in life, but she tells herself that doesn’t matter until she arrives at his palatial home Manderley… and the imposter syndrome begins almost immediately. Not helping matters is the head housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who is obsessed with Maxim’s previous wife, the titular Rebecca, and refuses to allow the new Mrs. DeWinter to step out of Rebecca’s shadow. Worse, Maxim also seems still stuck on his dead wife, who everyone goes to lengths to underline was the most beautiful and charming human being ever to exist in the history of time.

The film is a very good adaptation of an excellent novel by Daphne Du Maurier, which I read in high school. That gothic romance genre is marketed and geared specifically towards older women, which is a shame because the book perfectly speaks to a lot of what anyone is going through in high school. That imposter syndrome theme I mentioned earlier will especially resonate with anyone who is not a raging narcissist. And it’s a joy to see screenwriters Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison (“Foreign Correspondent”) keep that at the forefront of the adaptation – they do such an excellent job of making Mrs. DeWinter a sympathetic heroine, despite being passive throughout the majority of the film. When she finally stands up to Mrs. Danvers, you want to stand up and cheer.

This also underlines that Fontaine’s performance is the soul of “Rebecca” and the reason it works. She may have won the Oscar for the much-less successful “Suspicion,” but her work here ranks among the best in any Hitchcock film. Her eyes and mouth are so expressive that you can always tell what she is thinking, and even in moments where she goes over-the-top into cringing dramatics like she’s a silent movie star… it shockingly works. This is because she makes the viewer believe that her character is unable to hide her emotions, which can be a great strength but is seen as weakness by those who want to exploit it. Fontaine doesn’t have much chemistry with Olivier, but she miraculously manages to make that work to her performance’s advantage, using it to underline her awkwardness and how unsure she is of the tilting world around her.

None of this is to say that the rest of “Rebecca” is not well done, because it is. The filmmakers wisely understand that the heart of the story is not the romance between Mrs. DeWinter and Maxim, but Mrs. DeWinter’s relationship with the deceased Rebecca, brought to life explicitly by Rebecca’s most loyal Mrs. Danvers. The best scene in the film is a simple one, where Mrs. Danvers shows Mrs. DeWinter around Rebecca’s suite, simply showcasing things as she describes the intricacies of Rebecca’s life. The room feels haunted (thanks in no small part thanks to ace cinematographer George Barnes’ (“Spellbound”) work), and it seems as if Rebecca herself will somehow enter the room any second.

Much has been made about the adjustment to the makeshift mystery of what happened to Rebecca – Maxim killed her in the novel and it was accidental in the film… but the mystery doesn’t really matter in any way other than that it extends Rebecca’s shadow over the ensemble for the running time, so it did not bother me at all. But aside from the ending, I do find myself wishing the filmmakers had felt a little freer with their adaptation, because it is slavish in places. Did we really need the full monologue of the opening of the book as we drift through Manderley’s weaving paths?

I think “Rebecca” is wonderful in many ways and I find myself revisiting it quite often, especially in moments where I am feeling like an imposter in my own life. That said, I rewatched “The Letter” last week, which was also released in 1940 and was nominated for Best Picture against “Rebecca.” I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if that film’s director, William Wyler, would have instead directed this, with Hitchcock handling “The Letter.” Part of me thinks that switch would have made both films transcendent. Still, what we have here is a minor classic in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and it’s more than worth your time.

Score: ****1/2

Awards: “Rebecca” won Best Picture – among the other nominees were films noir “Foreign Correspondent” (also directed by Hitchcock) and “The Letter.” Barnes took home the Oscar for Best Black-and-White Cinematography (also nominated were “Foreign Correspondent” and “The Letter”). Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director (also nominated was “The Letter”) but lost to John Ford for Grapes of Wrath. Olivier was nominated for Best Actor but lost to “The Philadelphia Story” and Fontaine was nominated for Best Actress (along with “The Letter”) but lost to “Kitty Foyle.” Anderson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress but lost to “The Grapes of Wrath.” The film was nominated for Best Screenplay but lost to “The Philadelphia Story” and Best Score but lost to “Pinocchio” (also nominated was “The Letter”). It lost Best Black-and-White Art Direction to “Pride and Prejudice” and Best Editing (also nominated was…wait for it… “The Letter”) to “North West Mounted Police,” which is apparently a movie that exists. Finally, it was nominated for Best Special Effects to “The Thief of Bagdad” (also nominated was “Foreign Correspondent”).

The Bigamist

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Collier Young

Story: Lawrence B. Marcus and Lou Schor

Director: Ida Lupino

Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine, Edmund Gwenn

Cinematography: George E. Diskant

Music: Leith Stevens

Company: Filmmakers Releasing Organization

Release: December 3, 1953

“I can’t figure out my feelings towards you. I despise you and I pity you. I don’t even want to shake your hand… and yet I almost wish you luck.”

At one point in “The Bigamist,” a character describes his point-of-view on the title bigamist, Harry (Edmond O’Brien), and I could not agree more. It’s kind of incredible to have a film from 1953 to have that much ambiguity – it refuses to turn him into an easy villain, but it never shies away from how wild his actions are.

As the movie opens, we meet Harry and his wife Eve (Joan Fontaine) as they are being interviewed by Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) about adopting a child. Jordan likes Eve, but has an odd feeling about travelling deep-freeze salesman Harry, who lives in San Francisco but spends part of his time in Los Angeles. Mr. Jordan follows Harry to Los Angeles, and discovers Harry rents a home there (!) where he lives with his other wife (!!) and child (!!!).

The screenplay by Collier Young (“The Hitch-hiker”) and director Ida Lupino (also “The Hitch-hiker”) go to lengths during this first act to build a sense of mystery around Harry, taking their time to understand just why exactly Mr. Jordan can’t quite put his finger on what is wrong. The big reveal, which comes about 20 minutes in, would actually work as an awesome twist… if the movie wasn’t called “The Bigamist.” I’m not gonna lie – because of that title, it feels a little like wasted time.

Harry invites Mr. Jordan in, and the movie shifts to a flashback structure as Harry explains how exactly he got into this predicament. Harry is business partners with Eve, and complains that their marriage had gotten stale as a result. Poor baby. One day while wandering through Los Angeles, he took a bus tour through Beverly Hills (I smiled widely when the driver pointed out Gwenn’s house on the tour) and met Phyllis (Lupino). Sparks flew and, though he resisted, they fell in love. He was about to leave Eve, but then her father died. He was about to tell Phyllis, but then she was pregnant with his child. And so on and so forth. And, before you know it, he’s a bigamist. Whoops.

In case you haven’t already realized, this storyline doesn’t sound much like a film noir. And that’s because, bluntly, it isn’t really a noir. Yeah, this is one of those movies like “While the City Sleeps” and “Daisy Kenyon” which is created by a bunch of noir superstars, so it feels like it should be noir… and so critics bend over backwards to figure out ways to classify it as such. It ends in a courtroom? That works for them!

That said, it’s a very good film. Lupino’s work as a director has mostly failed to impress me… I kinda sorta enjoyed “The Hitch-hiker,” but flat-out hate “Outrage.” This, however, is her most impressive work by far – entirely on a different level than her other films. A lot of the power the film conjures comes not from the big dramatic bits, but the small moments that Lupino and Young discover for the characters that feel genuine. After Harry spends the day on the bus with Phyllis and then follows her to the Chinese restaurant he works at, he calls Eve and is actually honest about the day… but says it in such a way where he can dismiss his feelings. Almost trying to convince himself by telling her. Or note the vulnerability in Phyllis when she tries to resist admitting she loves Harry.

With moments that relatable, it’s easy to get caught up in Harry’s story. It’s also interesting that Young made the decision to tell the entire sordid tale from his point of view instead of one of the wives – his voiceover allows us to see his perspective on the events even if the filmmakers do not offer easy sympathy for him. Which, to be clear, they should not. Because obviously.

The trio of Lupino, Collier and Fontaine had an odd personal connection to the material – Lupino was married to Collier until they divorced and he married Fontaine very soon after. This was obviously a boon for the movie’s publicity, and also fun when you think about the conversations the trio much have had to get to the point where they decided to make a film with this subject matter.

Both women give excellent performances – Fontaine with her easy assurance that she’s doing the right thing and Lupino with her vulnerability despite the walls she has up. Both share ample chemistry with O’Brien, who gives the best performance I’ve seen from him here… oddly sympathetic where most other actors would just come off as a complete asshole. Gwenn offers solid supporting work, especially when he his character has to drive the entire first act.

Lupino’s direction is solid throughout, showcasing Los Angeles’ locations with flair thanks to the work of cinematographer George E. Diskant (“Kansas City Confidential”). As I wrote earlier, this isn’t a noir film, so don’t look for all the light and shadows you would expect otherwise. That said, it is a very good looking movie.

I’m honestly kind of shocked the final sequence made it past the censors. Harry’s lawyer making the argument that Harry’s actions would be lauded by most men except for the fact that he married his mistress. Ending before Harry receives any sort of punishment beyond the guilty verdict. But, like the rest of the film, the ambiguity here lends a lot of power. The only interaction Eve and Phyllis have is when they share a look. At first, I wanted much more, but then realized that a full dialogue-driven sequence would not have conjured the same power as that single, simple moment.

Score: ****

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Douglas Morrow, based on his Story

Director: Fritz Lang

Cast: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer

Cinematography: William Synder

Music: Herschel Burke Gilbert

Studio: RKO Pictures

Release: September 13, 1956

Percent Noir: 60%

These people are all idiots.

I know, I know. We are watching film noir. Its heroes aren’t exactly known for having high I.Q.’s. But the lead and supporting ensemble of “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” are so, so fundamentally stupid that it becomes difficult to watch the film.

Here is a movie made by a bunch of incredibly talented humans who seem to not give two shits about this project. Fritz Lang! Dana Andrews! Joan Fontaine! All of them are giving about 20% of their all in any given scene… but considering the quality of the story, I don’t blame them.

Andrews stars as Tom Garrett, who comes up with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea with Austin (Sidney Blackmer), the father of his fiancé Susan (Fontaine). In order to prove that the death sentence is a bad thing, Tom will take an existing murder and create enough circumstantial evidence to be arrested and tried for the killing. Then, after the guilty verdict and being sentenced to death, Tom and Austin will come forward and say it was all a scheme, thereby proving their point.

Yes, these dummies deserve everything they’re about to suffer through.

Neither man decides to let poor, poor Susan in on their plan, so she’s stuck questioning whether her fiancé is actually a killer, which is morally reprehensible. Austin dies in a fiery car accident with all the evidence that would clear Tom right after he’s sentenced to death, to which I say “haha!” Once Susan realizes the truth, she begins doing everything to clear Tom’s name, including using her father’s newspaper to manipulate the public’s opinion of the case to help him. Aaaaaaand there goes any sympathy I had for her.

But we haven’t even gotten to the final, lunatic twist that was so nuts that I actually wondered if Lang was making a low-key comedy. Because it turns out that Tom actually committed the murder he was accused of! Yes, you read that right. He killed his secret first wife. So, yeah.

The screenplay by Douglas Marrow is terrible. No other way to put it. Every scene is written without emotion or stakes, with characters spouting exposition in the most tedious, complicated ways possible. In a previous article, I mentioned how clunky the discussion of ethical killing was at the beginning of Lang’s “The Woman in the Window.” Well, my friends, that was a masterpiece of a scene compared to this crap. The worst moment in the entire film is the one where Susan catches Tom in a lie and he confesses that he’s really the murderer to her. There isn’t a single sentence there that makes logical sense, nor any trace of emotion from either character that is close to human.

If the screenplay itself was better, would it be easier to swallow the myriad of bad plot devices and ignore the plot holes larger than King Kong?

No. No, it wouldn’t.

It doesn’t help at all that the acting is terrible across the board. Fontaine can be incredible when used properly, as we’ve seen in “Rebecca” or “Kiss the Blood Off My Hands.” But here she’s ill-suited to her character – Fontaine simply comes across as too smart for Susan, and also has a lot of trouble elevating the awful dialogue. I don’t blame her for that second part. I’ve been more hot and cold on Andrews, and here he doesn’t seem to care at all. And not in a “my character is really a sociopath” way. In a bad acting way. How the hell are we supposed to care if Tom lives or dies when Andrews looks like he’s rather be anywhere else?

The film also looks bad. You know something has gone terribly wrong when your movie’s title sequence is the best thing about it. And it is quite decent, showing a man on death row going through his final moments of life – climaxing in his killing, with the camera pointed directly on the faces of those who have come to watch the event, studying their reactions. But the rest? The sets look like something out of a PRC film or, more realistically, a sitcom. In fact, for a moment, I actually wondered if a restaurant the characters were sitting in was the redressed set from the “L.A. at Last!” episode of “I Love Lucy.” Lang could and should have done better, and so should his cinematographer William Synder. Everything is shot in a flat, boring style that seems more soap opera than film noir. We barely get any shadows.

The other thing that I find so odd is that “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” has been undergoing a bit of a critical re-evaluation of late, with some critics saying that it’s the best American film Lang directed. These critics obviously haven’t seen any other American film Lang created, because they are all better than this. The production was quite troubled, with Andrews’ alcoholism and Lang’s clash with producers over the ending making for interesting stories, and that stuff is catnip for critics who like to lean into the drama as proof of a piece of art’s legitimacy. But the real reason this surprises me is that it seems so obvious that no one on set is invested in the final product. From acting to direction to cinematography to music to that terrible, terrible script, the entire cast and crew were phoning it in from an area with only one bar of service. On every level I can imagine, this is a bad movie.

Score: *

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Leonardo Bercovici

Adaptation: Ben Maddow & Walter Bernstein

Additional Dialogue: Hugh Gray

Based on the novel by Gerald Butler

Director: Norman Foster

Cinematographer: Russell Metty

Music: Miklos Rozsa

Cast: Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster

Release: October 30, 1948

Studio: Universal

Percent Noir: 70%

At long last we have come to the best title in the history of film noir. Think about it… does it get any better than “Kiss the Blood Off My Hands”? I don’t think so. But is the movie itself more than just that name? After all, it didn’t garner much attention when first released, despite newly minted A-lister Burt Lancaster’s presence, and it seems to have fallen through the cracks of history. Unavailable on any of the film noir compilations from Universal, you can only get it on one of those cheaply made DVD-Rs. Turns out, it’s actually great… with a fantastic beginning that grabs you and never let’s go.

I’m surprised the first ten minutes aren’t more well-remembered, because the sequence is a doozy. Drunk ex-GI Bill (Lancaster) accidentally kills someone he sucker punches in a bar in the UK. Immediately pursued by the cops, he races across the fog-ridden city with the law at his heels, finally climbing up the skeleton of a building and into the window of a sleeping Jane (Joan Fontaine). She wakes up and he sorta kinda holds her hostage, but Jane senses that he’s not a danger to her. Despite several opportunities to get the police, she allows him to stay and leave when he wants to. Immediately smitten, Bill finds her at her job the next day and Jane notices the sparks too. But, partially because he’s a former POW of the Nazis and partially because he’s the hero in a film noir, Bill has a short fuse and gets violent in front of Jane, assaulting three men and getting arrested. She breaks things off and he’s sentenced to six months in prison.

When released, they reconnect and Bill tries to stick on the straight and narrow to prove himself worthy of Jane. That gets especially difficult when a man who witnessed Bill kill the man in the bar finds Bill and blackmails him into taking part in a medical supply robbery.

Unfortunately, despite the movie having a kinky side – Bill is stripped, shackled and whipped by the police as punishment for the assault – no bloody hands are kissed during the runtime. Still, a shirtless Burt Lancaster is always a pleasure, so thank you filmmakers.

Though the story follows the broad strokes of “Kiss of Death,” which was released a year prior, “Kiss the Blood From My Hands” has its own identity. I love the twist of having Jane stab Bill’s blackmailer to death, “Dial M For Murder”-style, and the bittersweet choices the characters make in the finale are quite powerfully staged and acted.

Perhaps the reason the film isn’t remembered much today is because it puts much more emphasis on romance than a normal noir. The beating heart of the movie is Bill’s relationship with Jane, and if we don’t buy into their attraction and, later, love for one another, then the movie does not fundamentally work.

Luckily, Fontaine and Lancaster spark a fine coupling onscreen. It’s quite an odd match at first, with their acting styles quite different. Fontaine’s natural fragility doesn’t seem like it would mesh with Lancaster’s roughness, but somehow… it just works. Lancaster’s soulful eyes and Fontaine’s warm smile help. Their first few scenes together are touch and go, especially an ill-conceived one at a zoo where Bill has a breakdown (the animals are in cages… and so was he! Metaphor!). But when the duo go on a date to the racetrack together, the chemistry takes off. You engage with them as a couple, and because of that you buy the difficult conversations they have with one another in the third act.

The director, Norman Foster, is little-remembered today aside from the Orson Welles produced “Journey Into Fear,” which many scholars insist Welles ghost-directed even though they have no evidence. Foster was a journeyman director, working on several Mr. Moto films (unseen by me) and some of the best installments of the Charlie Chan franchise (“Charlie Chan at Treasure Island”). The promise he showed elsewhere is on display in most every scene here. I’ve already written about that opening – and must give cinematographer Russell Metty (“The Stranger,” “Ride the Pink Horse”) credit too – but I would be remiss if I didn’t spotlight the romantic scenes either. Foster takes great advantage of location shooting in these scenes to bring a natural atmosphere forward, contrasting it beautifully with the stylized night scenes.

The screenplay is also well done, despite involving the work of four screenwriters, and that’s only the credited ones. I like how strong they make Jane when she needs to be, whether fending off the blackmailer with those scissors or standing up to Bill when he’s flying off the handle. This is one of those great examples of a “good girl” heroine who is just as interesting and engaging as any femme-fatale character.

A quick shout out to Miklos Rozsa for his sublime score, which balances the tone of noir and romance perfectly. It helps to keep the tone balanced throughout, and his love theme here is one for the ages.

Look, I know getting your hands on “Kiss the Blood Off My Hands” is rough. It’s not streaming anywhere, and the DVD costs as much as several other DVD and Blu-ray noir sets. And yet… it’s worth it. Here is a hidden film noir treasure that engages you emotionally thanks to the wonderful romantic pairing at the center, but also stuns as a visual tour de force. That opening sequence should be studied in film schools as a great example of how to build suspense and action over a prolonged period of screentime. It’s one of my favorite discoveries so far on the Odyssey.

Score: ****1/2