99 River Street

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Robert Smith

Based on the short story “Crosstown” by George Zuckerman

Director: Phil Karlson

Cast: John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, Peggie Castle

Cinematography: Franz Planer

Music: Arthur Lange and Emil Newman

Studio United Artists

Release: August 21, 1953

The moment “99 River Street” ended, I began to wonder why it is not more beloved today with noir fans. Here is an exquisite film that captures your attention from its first minute and never lets go – created by an ensemble all working at the top of their games. It’s a hidden treasure within the genre.

John Payne stars as washed-up boxer Ernie, who could have been one of the greats but an eye injury during a fight has ensured he will never fight again because of the risk of losing that eye entirely. Now he works as a cab driver and his jaded, cheating wife Pauline (Peggie Castle) at a local flower shop. She’s planning on leaving him for a thief named Victor (Brad Dexter), but he makes a mistake in bringing her to a diamond exchange – the guy refuses to do business when a woman is near. In order to finish the exchange, Victor kills Pauline and tosses her body in Ernie’s cab, framing him for murder. Now an on-the-run Ernie and aspiring actress Linda (Evelyn Keyes) must search the city for Victor before he leaves the country along with any hope of Ernie being able to clear his name.

The plotline is more complex than you expect, and the film never wastes a single second of its 82-minute running time. It’s a testament to screenwriter Robert Smith’s (“Sudden Fear”) talents that you aren’t quite sure where the plotline is heading for the first half of the movie. There is a moment at the beginning of the second act where the film seems to turn into a whole different narrative entirely, where Linda takes Ernie to a theater where an unmoving body lies onstage and tells him in a fantastic monologue how she killed him. Director Phil Karlson (“The Phenix City Story”) does something incredible with the camera here. Usually with these types of monologues, directors do a slow zoom in while the actor remains still. Here Linda is up and moving around, but the camera stays directly on her face in close up the entire time, giving the effect of a shifting, dreamlike background. It’s incredibly impactful, especially considering its subtlety.

Linda’s story was fake – some part of a dare made by the theater’s director and producer. Normally, I’d roll my eyes at such a red herring, but the filmmakers do such a great job of selling it that I don’t mind at all. Plus, it helps click in Linda’s narrative purpose and gives her a drive once she decides to help Ernie out a reel or so later.

Victor is a solid villain, but makes one fundamental mistake in his plans – he crossed a New York City cab driver. And the film has so much fun with that aspect of the story. Smith makes the cab station feel like a real place and takes great care sketching out Ernie’s friend and boss Stan (Frank Faylen) – we care about their friendship, and the moment Ernie pushes Stan away is surprisingly emotional. But I also love all of the cab hopping Ernie and Linda do in the second half to escape the police, as well as the idea that the entire fleet of taxi drivers in all the boroughs are on the search for Victor to help Ernie. It feels so specific to New York, and especially fresh for the noir genre.

Also impressive is the way Smith pays off the boxing subplot that he sets up in the prologue sequence. I figured it was just a way to shoot a cool set-piece (the opening looks exquisite) and frame Ernie as a has-been, but Smith pays off all his repressed anger and frustration time and again throughout the film, and director Karlson smartly frames the final fight between Ernie & Victor in the same way that he shot the opening. It’s a beautiful full-circle moment.

Both Payne and Keyes were excellent character actors who never quite made it to the A-list for one reason or another. They turn in fantastic performances here that make you wish they would have. Payne perfectly balances his character’s simmering brutality with his vulnerability about the situation – the film even gives him a small moment to grieve the death of his wife to underline what a good man he was, even if she was doing all these terrible things to him. This is a huge showcase for Keyes, first the monologue and later when she tries to be a drunk seductress at a seedy bar. The actress seems to be having a blast, and sparks quite a lot of chemistry with Payne. The rest of the ensemble nail their smaller rolls, but the movie belongs to Payne and Keyes.

At this point in his career, Karlson was jumping back and forth between noir films and mid-budget Westerns. Aside from a few misfires like “5 Against the House,” he is the most dependable of noir directors. But here he seems to be working on a different level – every major scene and sequence has a few shots and set-ups that would have been ignored or not even considered by a lesser B-movie director. But moments like Linda’s monologue or when Ernie sees his wife cheating on him elevate the already strong screenplay. I’m sure some of this is thanks to cinematographer extraordinaire Franz Planer, who shot noir films like “Criss Cross” and “The Chase” along with 20 or so other straight-up classics. The two work beautifully together, and I wish they had collaborated more often.

“99 River Street” is classic noir in all the right ways and is necessary viewing for even casual viewers of the genre. I watched it twice before writing this article, and plan to do so again later today. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure to check it out… you’re in for a treat, my friend.

Score: *****

The Sound of Fury / Try and Get Me!

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Jo Pagano, based on his novel “The Condemned”

Director: Cy Endfield

Cast: Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson, Katherine Locke

Cinematographer: Guy Roe

Music: Hugo Friedhofer

Studio: United Artists

Release: December 12, 1950

When “The Sound of Fury” begins, I would not blame you for thinking this was just an average, run-of-the-mill noir. But as it progresses, it gains more and more power, until you can’t look away from the screen. It may be imperfect and muddle its thematic intent, but it still climaxes with one of the most harrowing, horrifying sequences ever put on film. If you see it, you cannot forget it.

United Artists clearly knew they had a powerful film on their hands. When it failed to make an impression upon its release in December of 1950 (this is not a Christmas movie), the studio decided to rename it and re-release it. Which was a great idea, except that the new name was the abhorrent “Try and Get Me!” and their new poster featured what appeared to be a 100-foot-tall Lloyd Bridges cackling with laughter while stomping on dozens of horrified tiny people. The revamp was clearly not an improvement. The movie subsequently lived in obscurity for decades.

Frank Lovejoy plays Howard, a perpetually out-of-work schlub of a husband to the pregnant Judy (Kathleen Ryan) and their son Tommy (Donald Smelick). Desperate for money, Howard meets up with criminal Jerry (Bridges), who becomes his homme fatale, seducing him with his rich clothes and gifts into a life of crime. The money is great, so Howard loves it for awhile, but then Jerry gets the idea to kidnap the son of a rich man in town and hold him for ransom. Though Howard resists, he ultimately agrees, only to witness Jerry savagely murder and mutilate the man’s body, then send out a ransom note anyway. Howard spirals into mental distress, finally confessing and being arrested for the murder, with Jerry caught a few days later. Concurrently, the newspapers twist and contort the story and get the entire town riled up enough to break into the police station/jail and lynch the two men.

The film and its source novel are based on a real crime that happened in the ‘30s which was also the inspiration for Fritz Lang’s first American movie (and first American masterpiece) “Fury.” That noir twisted the story into something completely different and transcendent. Here the filmmakers keep the storyline much closer to the crime, where two men kidnapped and murdered the heir of a rich family then pretended that he was alive to get the ransom. After they were arrested, the newspapers kept publishing hypotheticals that the men would each blame the other for the killing on the stand, resulting in both going free, which caused the city to descend into chaos… with a mob ultimately lynching the two men.

Frank Lovejoy (top left) and Lloyd Bridges (bottom right) in TRY AND GET ME a.k.a. The Sound of Fury (1950), directed by Cyril Endfield.

This is dark stuff. Even for noir, it’s dark. And it’s to writer Jo Pagano and director Cy Endfield’s credit that they embrace the fucked up nature of the narrative to an extreme degree. There is no hint of redemption or hope anywhere to be seen, and that gives the film all the more power as a result.

I just wish that Pagano’s screenplay had been more clear thematically. Obviously one of the main lessons of the piece involves the newspaper reporter Gil (Richard Carlson) writing stories about the murder which rile up the local community. But Pagano does not do enough to show the community in distress prior to the mob forming. And some of the dialogue actively seems to be arguing against the themes, as when a visiting professor named Vido (Renzo Cesana) talks to Gil like he’s a child, chastising him for daring to write an article about the murders. At this point, the articles have only been praised and described by Gil’s wife as “vivid,” so we have assumed they are good reporting and not the period equivalent of Newsmax. “They aren’t convicted yet!” he chides, even though Harry has already confessed. He lambasts Gil for putting in details of the murder, even though those are simply facts. After Harry’s wife Judy talks to Gil, reading him Harry’s confession and desire to die, Gil is again chided for being cruel to Harry because he has a wife and child. No. No. No. Let’s shift the crime in our minds, shall we? Vido would essentially be saying “Don’t be so hard on that rapist – he must be a good man at heart if he has a wife and child.” Moments like that left me furious.

But then later, we actually see the newspaper that caused the mob, and it’s full of lies (“Will They Go Free?!” is the main headline, horrifying cartoons fill the left side of the page and more editorializing than any editor in his right mind would allow fills the rest). Like I wrote, it’s more like Newsmax than actual reporting. If Gil was really writing stories this horrible, why not play up how he’s over-dramatizing everything prior to us seeing the page? All we get is an editor saying “Keep writing like that!” without specifics. If Pagano had painted Gil and the newspaper like that crazy cover right from the start, the message and theme would have been clear right away. But instead, we get scene after scene of Gil being attacked for publishing facts, only to find out later he’d really gone crazy with the embellishments.

The cast is overall quite good, with a few standouts. Lovejoy is excellent as a man losing the will to live, and Bridges starts shaky but gains power the more unhinged Jerry becomes. But the best performance in the movie is a supporting role I didn’t even mention in my plot outline: Katherine Locke as the amazingly named Hazel Weatherwax. Brought in by her friend as a date for Harry to get his mind off all the murder, Hazel is one of the most distinctive characters I’ve seen in the genre. Fundamentally broken, afraid and also just plain weird, Locke makes every moment she is onscreen unforgettable. With a lesser actress, it would be a nothing role, but she makes it transcendent. I love this line that she probably improvised after her terrible first date with Harry. As he wanders away without even saying goodbye, she musters up all her strength and calls after him “Call me sometimes!” It’s the “sometimes” that makes it perfect.

The climactic lynching is an astonishing thing to behold. Today you can’t help but watch it and think of the domestic terrorists storming the Capitol on January 6, 2020… who were also humans who allowed fake news to manipulate them into violence. Watching Jerry cackling and screaming in his cell is horrifying, as is watching the mob lift Harry’s dying body down the stairs as Gil stares in horror. The masterstroke is the jump cut from that to Harry’s child Tommy waking up with a nightmare in bed and being soothed by his mother… told everything will be all right. No, Tommy. It won’t. And it will never be again.

But that’s not quite the end. I only wish that the final scene of the movie didn’t exist. It only serves to re-underline and throw exclamation points on the already established themes we already know, going so far as to have Vido offer up a voiceover reiterating his thoughts as the movie fades to black. It’s unnecessary hand holding and takes a little bit of the air out of an ending that still stands as one of the most powerful in film history.

“The Sound of Fury” is essential noir viewing, even considering its flaws. Director Endfield would soon be accused of being a communist and be one of the blacklisted directors to flee to Europe, where he continued to make noir films under a pseudonym until it was safe. I’m sure this movie didn’t help Endfield’s case against HUAC, but it’s an important story that needs told. I just wish it was a little less muddled.

Score: ****

The Strange Woman

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Herb Meadow

Based on the novel by Ben Ames Williams

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer

Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Louis Hayward, George Sanders, Hillary Brooke

Cinematography: Lucien N. Androit

Music: Carmen Dragon

Studio: United Artists

Release: October 25, 1946

Well, this is one case where the title doesn’t lie. Jenny Hager is indeed a strange woman. Further, “The Strange Woman” is a strange film. Here is one of those movies that is never uninteresting to watch – but I’m not sure it’s any good.

We’re closing out our miniseries on director Edgar G. Ulmer here, with perhaps (I’m presuming) the biggest budget he ever worked with. Since being exiled from all the major studios for causing the marital break-up of Carl Laemmle’s nephew Max Alexander (he later married Alexander’s now ex-wife Shirley Kassler and remained so for the rest of his life), Ulmer found haven among the Poverty Row studios, particularly PRC. After directing the well-regarded noir films “Bluebeard,” “Strange Illusion” and “Detour” for the studio, executives obviously knew what a talent they’d lucked into, and gave Ulmer his choice of their most high-profile productions, including their first million-dollar feature, the straight melodrama “Her Sister’s Keeper.” Now with a little buzz around him, producing partners Hedy Lamarr and Jack Chertok hired him to make this film, to be released through United Artists, with Lamarr also playing the lead character.

Turns out Jenny was making Bangor, Maine strange way before Stephen King moved in, with the film set in the early 1800s. The abused child of a drunk, Jenny learns quickly how to get what she needs to survive. After being whipped by her father, she shows off her wounds to local lumber baron Isaiah (Gene Lockhart), who marries her immediately despite the fact that she’s the same age as his son Ephraim (Louis Hayward). And before you can Google “Is it incest if they aren’t related by blood?” Jenny has seduced Ephraim and is telling him to off his father. Soon there’s a canoe accident and Isaiah is dead, even though Ephraim keeps claiming he didn’t mean to drown his dear ‘ole dad. Jenny spurns Isaiah and moves on to seducing the new captain of the lumberyard John (George Sanders), even though he’s currently in a relationship with Jenny’s best friend Meg (Hillary Brooke). If that sounds like a lot to happen in 100 minutes, you are correct.

Like “Bluebeard,” “The Strange Woman” almost stumbles into being a noir – most of its running time seems devoted into making a low-budget, less racist version of “Gone With the Wind,” with Lamarr’s Jenny a woman who cannot be tamed. But there are also savage passages where the character goes full-on femme fatale, pulling the movie into noir territory, specifically something akin to “Leave Her to Heaven.” I bring up that movie specifically because production was shut down for almost a month right around the time that “Heaven” was released, immediately becoming a critical darling and exploding at the box office (it would go on to become one of the most popular films of the decade). Now, the shut down was because Lamarr came down with the flu, but I have to wonder if script revisions weren’t made during the downtime to cash in on the success of “Heaven,” twisting Jenny into much darker territory. I have no proof of this, but the timing does make me wonder.

I also wonder this because, to be honest, the storytelling is totally scattershot. The screenplay is by Herb Meadow (“The Unguarded Moment”) and the viewer gets almost no sense of what he’s going for thematically. Jenny is an interesting character, but this is almost entirely thanks to Lamarr’s performance – on page she’s confusing and conflicted. The movie goes to pains to underline her kindness to the town, her love to Meg (until she suddenly stops loving Meg) and her sisterly bond with a town sex worker. But then three minutes later, Jenny is banging John less than five yards away from Ephraim’s still-hanging body – he was driven to suicide because of her. And no, I did not just make up that last sentence… it somehow got past the production code. I fully believe that three-dimensional characters can be capable of great good and great evil… but this feels more sloppy and scattered than purposefully sketching her out. And then there are the riots, evil preachers and the aforementioned canoeing accidents, which seem to come out of nowhere (these might have been in the source novel, but seem wild translated to screen). It doesn’t help that the finale sees Jenny trying to run John and Meg over with a carriage before being involved in a terrible accident at a cliff which didn’t exist one reel prior, and her dying words make almost zero sense thematically considering what we’ve just seen.

If the storyline doesn’t have a coherent throughline, that makes Lamarr’s work all the more impressive. She’s excellent here, managing to single-handedly sand down the weird edges of the storyline and make wild, baffling scenes seem coherent thanks to her work. You can’t look away from her while she’s onscreen, and it’s easy to understand why three men would all overlook gigantic red flags in order to sleep with her. Lockhart, Hayward and Sanders are all fine in their roles… none share much chemistry with Lamarr, but then again Lockhart and Hayward don’t need to. Brooke is very, very good in her thankless best friend role, getting a lot of fury and frustration across in her eyes and cheekbones.

For his part, Ulmer uses every penny of his budget to make things feel more epic than what we are actually seeing. After all, even though this was a huge budget for him, it is still a B-film. The world he creates looks great and feels foreboding-as-hell, and his collaboration with cinematographer Lucien N. Androit (“And Then There Were None”) is well done. The film apparently went over budget by almost a million dollars, but I have no idea whether this was because of Lamarr’s health crisis causing delays or Ulmer deciding to indulge himself.

Ulmer would visit noir only once more, with the abortive “Murder is My Beat.” After this, he would retreat mostly into science fiction, though every now and then get a decent budget to make an action flick as an Italian co-production, like the mostly forgotten “Hannibal”… the one with Victor Mature, not Anthony Hopkins and Ray Liotta’s exposed brains. If I’m being very honest with myself, I’m not sure that I’ve learned that much about Ulmer as a filmmaker through this mini-Odyssey… what I’m taking away is that he’s a visually accomplished director whose film quality rises and falls dramatically depending on the quality of his scripts. I liked “The Strange Woman” well enough, but what I’ll remember from it is Lamarr’s performance, not Ulmer’s direction.

Score: **1/2

The Killing

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Stanley Kubrick

Dialogue: Jim Thompson

Based on the novel “Clean Break” by Lionel White

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Music: Gerald Fried

Studio: United Artists

Release: May 19, 1956

I think “The Killing” is a fine, flawed film noir that honestly wouldn’t stick very long in my memory aside from the big climactic shot and Marie Windsor’s incredible femme fatale. Dare I say that if the exact same movie were to be released without Stanley Kubrick’s name attached to it, then it would barely be a footnote in the noir genre. But Kubrick’s name is attached, and so the film has become a blockbuster classic noir that is spoken within the same breath as the greats, which is unfortunate because… well… it’s not one of them.

The film chronicles a robbery of $2 million at a Los Angeles racetrack, one masterminded by Johnny (Sterling Hayden) as his last big score before he lives happily ever after with Fay (Colleen Gray). For the most part, he enlists normal guys in the heist instead of professionals – people who work jobs at the track, cops and the like. One of the schlubs who works at the track is George (Elisha Cook Jr.), who blabs about the plans to his femme-fatale-in-training wife Sherry (Windsor), who then immediately blabs to her lover Val (Vince Edwards), with Val planning to steal the stolen money. The first two acts are told in non-chronological fashion, zipping back and forth through time with a narrator informing us that we are a few hours before the last scene, or after the previous one, and so forth.

The broken timeline is an audacious idea… but doesn’t really pay off in any meaningful way. In fact, it alleviates suspense in several passages because Kubrick cuts out of the tension instead of continuing to build it. It’s doubly odd because, once the heist itself begins, all things settle chronologically and it stays straightforward for the rest of the runtime. So what was the point? Why not just tell the story and build the tension in a classic sense? I can think of other noir films that have variations of this same trick, but they tend to do something with breaking time. Look at “The Locket,” for example, which has flashbacks within flashbacks, but they serve to build the narrative to an explosive finale. Not so here. Kubrick could have easily used the broken timeline to hide the Sherry/Vince subplot and then reveal the complication later as a twist… but it was not to be. Instead, we have a great idea that is executed in a just-okay manner.

That said, there are many excellent moments to savor here. Kubrick indulges in his fetish for masks during the heist sequence, and the actual theft of the money is a beautiful moment, with a poor track employee forced at gunpoint to stuff millions of dollars into a burlap sack as we watch and see loose bills falling everywhere. The multiple scenes between the sharpshooter (Timothy Carey) and the parking attendant (James Edwards) who will ultimately kill him crackle with tension. Despite the eye-rolling nature of the annoying woman and her dog, the shot of the money flying away at the airport is astonishing. And every scene between George and Sherry is a master class in great noir storytelling, first in the way she keeps emasculating him in their first scene together and second when he has shot her & she screams about the injustice of it all as she fades away.

Windsor is incredible in the role and given the very best bits of dialogue courtesy of novelist Jim Thompson, who bafflingly only gets dialogue credit for the movie instead of co-writing credit with Kubrick. Granted, it’s the only real showy role here – the rest of the ensemble of seasoned noir veterans were clearly cast because of their type and then aren’t given much to do. Edwards and Hayden are perfectly fine. Gray must have only been on set for one or two days and is completely wasted.

Kubrick’s visual style has much improved since his last film, “Killer’s Kiss.” I love the subtle long takes that would become a hallmark of his style, and the way he frames violence is exquisite. Cinematographer Lucien Ballard (“Murder by Contract”) does an excellent job of marrying the style of the film itself with the myriad of stock racetrack footage that is used throughout.

Because of the whole Kubrick of it all, “The Killing” is probably one of the first noir films that many filmgoers encounter with the genre. As a result, the movie is often given credit for things that it didn’t really create (it was made in 1956, very late in the classic noir cycle) and is considered groundbreaking despite not breaking any ground. I also suspect it’s being overhyped by critics because Kubrick has so few feature films (13, but really 11 if you discount “Fear and Desire” and “Killer’s Kiss”)… so critics and movie fans will focus, then re-focus, on those few movies much more than work from a famed director with 30-40 films under his belt. As a result, everything in Kubrick’s oeuvre is getting a ton of critical re-evaluation all the time, skyrocketing nearly every one of his projects to masterpiece status… even if it isn’t worthy. And yes, I’m looking at you, “Eyes Wide Shut.” “The Killing” has been swept up in this same tide.

That said, it’s a good movie. If this was indeed your introduction to noir, it’s not a bad way to start. And it’s influenced a bunch of (better) movies, most notably Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and “Jackie Brown.” That said, if you are a fan of “The Killing,” I encourage you to check out other noir films that are stylistically interesting in the same way this film is, like the aforementioned “The Locket.” Right at the top of your list, though, should be “Armored Car Robbery,” which did nearly everything done here (including spilling money at the airport!) but six years earlier.

Score: ***

Killer’s Kiss

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Howard Sackler

Story: Stanley Kubrick

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Ruth Sobotka

Cinematography: Stanley Kubrick

Music: Gerald Fried

Studio: United Artists

Release: September 21, 1955

Back when I was studying Screenwriting at the American Film Institute Conservatory, we would have screenings of our student films followed by a meet-and-greet where we could gab and discuss. You could always tell what one of the Producing Fellows (we call them Fellows, not Students) thought because of what she said to the creative team after the movie. If she liked it, she would be complimentary, but if she didn’t, she would plaster on a nasty, fake-ass smile and tell the group: “You made a movie! Congrats!” To this day, I don’t know whether she thought everyone could not see through her obvious bullshit or if she knew we knew and decided to do it anyway. I somehow escaped her go-to line during the two-year program, but I still have much residual fury for my poor classmates.

I wondered what my former classmate would have said about “Killer’s Kiss.” Though technically Stanley Kubrick’s second feature as a director, it’s the first one that actually resembles a feature. Made on the most shoestring of shoestring budgets with Kubrick filling almost every behind-the-scenes position, the movie was snapped up by United Artists and effectively got Kubrick’s foot in the industry. The resulting film has many of the same weaknesses as those student films we made back at AFI, and is mainly interesting as a way for the viewer to search for hints of the genius that would blossom later.

Our main character is Davey (Jamie Smith), a boxer who is realizing that he has just passed his expiration date. He lives in an apartment building across from a dancer named Gloria (Irene Kane) whose boss Vincent (Frank Silvera) is an asshole who mistreats her terribly. One day Davey spies Gloria getting nearly beaten to death by Vincent, and chases the monster. Davey and Gloria fall in love and Gloria decides to quit her job, but Vincent isn’t going to let her go without a fight. Things escalate, and before you know it, Davey is being chased across New York City rooftops, battling for his life.

The movie is 67 minutes long and has about 25 minutes worth of plot in it. Kubrick stretches the material to its breaking point… and a little beyond… and seems less interested in making any character in the main trio three-dimensional and more interested in putting them in interesting positions in frame and then holding the take for several seconds too long. Again, this is a film school rookie mistake, and also understandable because of Kubrick’s background as a photographer. Davey is notable for being shirtless a lot (thanks for that, Stanley!) and reading letters/getting phone calls from a relative back home who sounds exactly like Danny DeVito. There’s never a moment where his sadness about being past his prime has any real resonance, with Kubrick instead making sure we get to see a shot of Davey’s face behind a fishbowl while feeding the fish.

There are several moments and sequences that are tremendous – an early montage of flyers advertising Davey’s fight works like gangbusters. A monologue about a ballerina seems to come out of nowhere, but Kubrick holds it so long that it becomes ingenious. And there are several moments in the climactic chase, particularly the ones on the fire escape, that are beautifully rendered. But there are other moments and shots in the fight which are taken at weird distances and held for far too many frames – ruining any sort of pacing or tension that was build previously. I understand why Kubrick chose shots like those… you don’t have to worry about coverage and let the background do the work for you. And had there only been two or three shots like that, fine. But there are dozens here.

The trio of main actors work quite well considering their lack of experience and the circumstances upon which they were made to act. And by that, I mean lots of dialogue dubbing, no finalized script and wandering through outdoor sequences knowing that their dialogue would be dropped. In many ways, this type of movie is more akin to something a silent movie performer would give. Smith has an odd voice, but is fantastically athletic and his face shows tension very, very well.

I also have a soft spot for “Killer’s Kiss” for a reason that has nothing to do with the movie itself. For years, several shots from the film were utilized in the bookends to late night movies shown on TCM. I can think of the diner and the shot of Gloria in front of the mirror specifically, and watching the movie for the first time this week gave me major nostalgia hits for those nights when I stayed up past midnight to check out those lesser-known old movies that deep-dive film buffs like me were eager to find.

And that’s fitting since “Killer’s Kiss” feels like one of those movies. It’s an odd thing to think that so many filmgoers are big enough fans of Kubrick that they actively seek out this well-executed experiment, happy to spend a little over an hour diving into a work simply to watch Kubrick find his sea legs with filmmaking. Does it work as an actual feature film? Kinda sorta maybe if you squint. I’ll remember images from it, but not the narrative. It’s made with more artistic quality than several of the disasters I’ve seen on this Odyssey, but no one would give a damn if Kubrick’s name was not attached. Movies like this are best found as bonus features on Criterion discs, so it’s fitting that it’s located on Criterion’s stacked release of Kubrick’s next feature, “The Killing,” which I’ll be covering next week.

Score: **

The Prowler

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Dalton Trumbo (uncredited)

Director: Joseph Losey

Cast: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell

Cinematography: Arthur C. Miller

Music: Lyn Murray

Studio: United Artists

Release: May 25, 1951

“The Prowler” is one of the most batshit noir films I have ever seen. If you showed me five minutes from the first act, then five minutes from the third act, I would believe I was watching two different films with the same ensemble of actors. I’m pretty sure this is a good movie… but I am certain it’s an audacious one.

After married Susan (Evelyn Keyes) discovers a prowler outside her home, she calls the police – the two officers investigating are Bud (John Maxwell) and Webb (Van Heflin). Webb returns later that night and proceeds to get his claws in Susan, and they begin an affair that ultimately ends with him murdering her husband after setting up the scene to make it look like he thought he was killing a prowler. Yes, that escalated quickly. Susan is pissed and rightly calls out Webb for his actions, but he manages to gaslight his way back to her. They are married, but she is already four months pregnant with his child, which obviously means they have to hide in a desert ghost town until she has the child… and during their time there, they go from wedded bliss to the final act of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” I told you it was crazy.

Prowler, The (1951) | Pers: Evelyn Keyes, Van Heflin | Dir: Joseph Losey | Ref: PRO023AE | Photo Credit: [ The Kobal Collection / United Artists ] | Editorial use only related to cinema, television and personalities. Not for cover use, advertising or fictional works without specific prior agreement

This is famously one of the three noir screenplays that Dalton Trumbo rushed out before being jailed for his “Un-American” activities – the other two being “Gun Crazy” and “He Ran All the Way.” Not a bad trio at all, though Trumbo would get credit for none of them until years later. Thematically, he’s playing with a lot (maybe too much?) including obvious bits about class difference and materialism. The most interesting, fucked up thing is that he has Webb legitimately fall in love with Susan… in his mind, all of his manipulations are worth it because the endgame is a happily ever after for them.

I’m also frankly surprised how well the Susan character works. The gaslighting makes her sympathetic and therefore it’s easier to root for her, even when she’s doing terrible things… like starting an affair with a man whose first few sentences addressing her were insults. But the character’s strength in the final reel, as she puts the pieces together and throws fiery accusations his way moments after giving birth, results in several great moments.

That said, the movie is also scattershot in its execution, specifically with an unnecessary subplot about Webb’s partner Bud and his wife, which isn’t interesting and the payoff ultimately isn’t worth the time and minutes the movie invests in it. The logic of why they must go to the desert is faulty at best, and the more exposition spent on supporting the move only underlines how silly it is. There’s also the question of the movie’s final moments, where Webb is brutally gunned down (he’s shot in the back!) even though he didn’t threaten anyone and any connection to the death of Susan’s husband remains fleeting at best. Storytelling-wise, I understand the want for the brutal finish, but a few slight tweaks could have made it feel more realistic.

Then again, the movie is purposely messy in many ways. It tries to do a lot of things, and I’d rather have a film that does this and doesn’t quite achieve its goals rather than something that is so safe that you forget it moments after finishing it. For example, I covered “Thunder on the Hill” last week and can barely remember a frame of it today.

Heflin is fine as Webb – it’s an incredibly difficult role to play and a lesser actor could have easily sank the entire thing, so the fact that Heflin manages to pull off as much as he does deserves commendation. Keyes’ role is also nigh-impossible to pull off, but she rocks it. The scene in court where she testifies about the death of her husband is stunning, frankly, and could be studied for its subtle work. Trumbo has an uncredited cameo as the voice of Susan’s husband on the radio, though when we see him, he’s played by a different actor. The rest of the cast is meh… no one is terrible, but no one else makes much of an impression.

The director is the always-interesting Joseph Losey (the “M” remake), and his work here is well-executed. I especially enjoyed the visual contrast between Susan’s gigantic home in the first act of the film and the broken-down home she and Webb live in during the third act, complete with a fallen-in wall that features a beautiful view of the mountains. This is the final film credit for journeyman cinematographer Arthur C. Miller, which included the noir films “Whirlpool” and “Man Hunt,” plus a bunch of Academy Awards and nominations, and it’s a beautifully rendered send-off. Both Losey and Miller seem to come to life during that third act in the ghost town, finding new and interesting angles to capture the desolate landscape surrounding our main characters.

Though Heflin was a star at the time and the film seems to have a substantive-enough budget, “The Prowler” really feels like a fast-and-dirty noir from Poverty Row. I mean that as a compliment… its audacity is its biggest strength. Well, that and the fact that it has its own perverted heart in the form of its main couple. Are we supposed to root for them? Are we supposed to pity them? Judge them? All three? Despite its myriad of problems, this is one of those movies that lingers with you. It haunts your thoughts hours and days after you finish it. Any movie with that kind of staying power deserves my recommendation.

Score: ****

Last Embrace

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: David Shaber

Based on “The 13^th Man” by Murray Teigh Bloom

Director: Jonathan Demme

Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover, Christopher Walken

Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto

Music: Miklos Rozsa

Studio: United Artists

Release: May 4, 1979

 When I do a neo-noir film, I try to make sure that it’s a movie with a lasting impact on the genre that will add something to the Odyssey. I had never heard of this film before, but when I discovered that the great Jonathan Demme created a noir film, the Kino Blu ray was in my cart within five minutes.

Turns out there is a reason I had never heard of “Last Embrace.” This movie is complete batshit, with an emphasis on the shit part.

There is only one credited screenwriter for the project, David Shaber (“The Warriors”) which is confounding to me because it feels like a new screenwriter seems to take over the film every six minutes. And no, I’m not exaggerating. Maybe there was a fleet of ghostwriters at work here?

Roy Scheider plays Harry, who is a secret agent for a shady agency (this does not matter in the end) and brings his wife on a mission, where she is gunned down (this does not matter in the end). After being thrown into an asylum for months (this does not matter in the end), Harry finds the agency has moved on without him and actually sends some of its agents to kill him (this does not matter in the end).

If you’re like “Huh, that sounds like an interesting movie,” I recommend turning off “Last Embrace” at 25 minutes, because it turns out it’s a whole different thing. It’s actually about a Goel, who in the Jewish tradition must avenge his or her relatives, especially if they are enslaved. I know, quite the left turn, right? Harry begins investigating a series of deaths by someone avenging the enslavement of their ancestors… and turns out he is one of the descendants in the crosshairs. Also in play is his sort-of roommate/sort-of love interest/obvious killer Ellie (Janet Margolin), who it turns out is the aforementioned Goel.

The story is absolutely baffling on a scene-by-scene basis. All of the characters act entirely insane in any given moment. The sudden cut to Ellie dressed as a sex worker and drowning a guy in the bathtub (he just submits without struggling) is wildly out of place and cringe-worthy. And none of the big suspense set-pieces, most of which are obviously inspired by Hitchcock, land with any sort of impact.

Look at this poster. It’s a fucking great poster, amiright? In addition to giving away the climactic moment in the movie, the actual moment is nothing like this amazing image, which could have been shot in a water park for all the perspective of Niagara Falls we get. I hated (hated!) “Niagara” with a heated passion, but the chase sequence at the falls in that film was leagues better than this. How boring is the climactic 15 minute (!) chase, you ask? Well, at a certain point the characters join a tour group. Yes. You read that right.

Poor, poor Scheider is one of the best actors of his generation, but he has zero idea what to do with this material. He is especially bad when he is intensely reacting to his life falling apart in the first 20 minutes. Though there was potential with the character, the execution in the writing left him with nowhere to go. There’s a moment early on when Mandy Patinkin (!) may or may not attempt to push Harry in front of a train, and Scheider spins around a poll all but screaming – the moment is supposed to be super-intense, but visually looks as if he’s restaging that iconic moment in “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Margolin is likewise adrift, but the sex work/murder scene she does is cringeworthy because she genuinely looks uncomfortable doing it. Aside from that, she does not have the range to switch from the geeky girl to the seductress to the tortured villain, and it shows. John Glover and Christopher Walken have roles too big to be cameos but too small to be featured… and both appear to have taken a bunch of caffeine pills just before the cameras rolled.

Demme is clearly trying to do his version of a Hitchcock movie, with shoutouts to a myriad of his films, from “Foreign Correspondent” to “Shadow of a Doubt” to “Vertigo” and many in between. None of these moments do anything other than make you wish that you were watching those movies instead. This was Demme’s first collaboration with cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, who is one of the greatest DPs in the history of film. In addition to his work on almost all of Demme’s subsequent films, he’s lensed classics as diverse as “The Sixth Sense,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Devil in a Blue Dress.” Unfortunately, you get almost no sense of Fujimoto’s mastery of the camera here. I’ve already talked about the ending, but the film also opens with a dream sequence murder which Demme and Fujimoto purposely make feel off and awkward to underline the tone. Bluntly, it doesn’t work.

Ignore that amazing poster. Pretend Demme and Fujimoto’s names are not on the project. Also pretend Scheider is not the lead. Because then you’ll have no reason to watch “Last Embrace.” And, to be clear, you really, really, really, really should not watch it.

Score: *

Hangmen Also Die

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: John Wexley

Story: Fritz Lang and Bertolt Brecht

Director: Fritz Lang

Cast: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, Dennis O’Keefe, Alexander Granach

Cinematography: James Wong Howe

Music: Hanns Eisler

Studio: United Artists

Release: March 27, 1943

Awards: Eisler was nominated for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedic Picture (also nominated was “Casablanca”), but lost to “The Song of Bernadette.” Further, it was nominated for Best Sound Recording, but lost to “This Land is Mine.”

As fascism was skyrocketing in popularity in Germany, director Fritz Lang had many reasons to be concerned. The first was that he was partially Jewish. The second was that his wife Thea von Harbou had joined the Nazi party. The third was that Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (who was unaware of Lang’s Jewish heritage) told him in no uncertain terms that he expected Lang to become head of German film production to create works sympathetic to fascism. Suddenly unable to recognize his home country, Lang divorced von Harbou and fled Germany, first for France and later to America, where he was one of the main architects behind the film noir genre, which he had begun in 1931’s “M.”

I don’t like to turn these articles into history lessons, but I wanted to give proper context as to why Lang’s “Hangmen Also Die” must have been an important film for him. He sought out other refugees from Germany to work on the production, co-writing the screenplay with Bertolt Brecht (yes, that Bertolt Brecht in his only feature work!) and hiring Hanns Eisler (“Deadline at Dawn”) as composer. It is, for all intents and purposes, a propaganda film against Nazism, and in that regard it works wonderfully.

But it’s also a great movie in its own right.

The narrative uses the real-life assassination of high-ranking Nazi official Reinhard “The Hangman” Heydrich to create a fictional narrative about its impact on the people of Czechoslovakia. Like many of Lang’s films, there is no single protagonist, but a large cast for us to follow. First off is the man who shot Heydrich, a surgeon named Dr. Franticek (Brian Donlevy), who is aggressively pursued by the Gestapo. He manages to take shelter in the home of one of the witnesses, Mascha (Anna Lee), though that puts her entire family and fiancé (Dennis O’Keefe) in immediate danger. Mascha’s father Stephen (Walter Brennan) is soon taken away with 400 other hostages, who Nazi officials begin killing in groups of 40, every day until the assassin is apprehended. Also in play is secret Nazi Emil (Gene Lockhart), who is part of a bunch of groups plotting against Nazis and is secretly funneling information to the gestapo.

The ensemble is huge (I could have easily listed another ten characters vital to the plot), but the movie never feels overstuffed. It also has a substantive running time at well over two hours, but never feels slow. The tension and pacing are always taut, and the ticking clock of Stephen’s imminent assassination offers up plenty of danger.

Screenwriter John Wexley (“Cornered”) makes sure that each important character gets a good introduction, so that it’s always easy to keep track of the hoard. For example, one of the Nazi officers investigating the assassination has a giant pimple on his cheek he keeps picking at in mirrors. Is it the first pimple ever on camera? No way to say for sure, but if so, I can’t think of a better character to plaster it on. Wexley also (with one or two exceptions) makes sure that every one of his characters is smart – when cornered, they rarely make the dumb choice we’ve seen thousands of times in film before, but do something new and different. I love the bit where Franticek and Mascha are passing notes back and forth about what to say when they realize they are being listened to by the Nazis. Later, when an injured man is hidden behind a curtain and his blood starts dripping on a newspaper sitting on the ground, Franticek thinks up a brilliant way to hide the blood.

At first, all the cutaways to Stephen and the other hostages grate. This was compounded by a beat where officials tell Mascha that her father has been shot, only to have them renege on it moments later and admit he’s alive. These passages are the most clear propaganda sections, with the group singing patriotic hymns as people are being walked out to their death. But I immediately understood their function and forgave all my frustrations during the climax of the film, which features perhaps the most powerful moment Lang has ever captured. We first see villainous Emil being shot in the back after being pressed to run from the gestapo, with him crawling towards a church before dying alone in the gutter. It’s a moment to make you cheer… one that Lang completely obliterates seconds later when we see Stephen gunned down. Suddenly, I found myself crying. It’s a brilliant edit and a powerful, gutsy finale. The good guys may have won a small battle in the war, but this isn’t a happy ending and there is still so much further to go. Lang even makes a point of saying “NOT THE END” over the final frames, underlining that the struggle continues.

The large cast are all either good or competent, though Lee unfortunately keeps going a little bit too big in her emotional scenes. The cinematographer is the man, the myth, the legend James Wong Howe (“Body and Soul,” “Sweet Smell of Success”) and he does an unsurprisingly excellent job here – a suspense sequence in a hospital changing room has all the existential dread of a German Expressionist film thanks to his incredible visual choices.

Lang would make other films about Nazis: “Man Hunt,” “Cloak and Dagger” and “Ministry of Fear,” the last of which is a noir that I have covered before on this Odyssey. They’re all good. But this one? This one feels personal. It may not be the master’s best film or even his best film noir, but it is essential viewing to help understand who he was and why he told the stories that he did.

Score: *****

You Only Live Once

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker

Based on the novel “Thieves Like Us” by Edward Anderson

Director: Fritz Lang

Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, William Gargan, Jean Dixon

Cinematography: Leon Shamroy

Music: Alfred Newman

Studio: United Artists

Release: January 29, 1937

Fritz Lang invented the film noir with 1931’s masterpiece “M,” and, once he had settled into America, he set his sights on creating a sub-genre – the lovers on the run. Though lesser known… probably because it was released before when most critics wrongly consider the beginning of American film noir… “You Only Live Once” serves as an almost beat-for-beat blueprint of upcoming classics like “They Live By Night,” “Gun Crazy,” “Bonnie & Clyde” and so many others.

The lovers are Eddie (Henry Fonda) and Jo (Sylvia Sidney). Jo works as a secretary in the DA’s office, while Eddie is just about to get out of his third major stint in prison. The duo are happily reunited and married, despite everyone telling Jo it’s a bad match, and for awhile things seem like they’re going to work out. Eddie is given a job and Jo begins to turn their newly purchased house into a home. But then bad luck strikes: Eddie is fired and then accused of a bank job he chose not to do. Now furious and distrusting of the system, he doesn’t believe it when he’s told his name has been cleared (it has) and murders a priest during a prison escape. A pregnant Jo joins him on the run, but both know they can’t last like that forever.

Oftentimes when you are looking at a movie that all-but-begins a genre or subgenre, its storyline and tropes have been ripped off (or, in some cases, improved upon) so many times that the original seems awkward, unoriginal and stilted. So it is with some relief that I can write that “You Only Live Once” still works quite well today. Director Fritz Lang works with such a sure hand that the film feels more modern than it actually is.

As with his previous film “Fury,” Lang offers up a bunch of different styles and tones throughout the running time in order to get audiences to surrender to his storytelling. The first half hour of the movie plays more like a weepie romance than a hard-hitting noir, with Alfred Newman’s score going hard on the syrup while Eddie and Jo reconnect out of prison. Their honeymoon in particular plays almost expressionistic, with a beautiful shot of the lovers framed upside-down next to a frog pond that is stunning. The cinematography by Leon Shamroy (“Leave Her to Heaven”) shines beautifully here, a perfect match for what Lang is going for.

But once the movie shifts for darkness, Shamroy and Lang become even more expressionistic – even though there is dialogue, certain sequences like a heist that takes place in a rainstorm or the prison breakout might as well be silent films. There’s incredible imagery throughout, especially a shot where an armored truck is pulled from a swamp. For my money, it’s better than the car being pulled out of the swamp at the end of “Psycho.”

It’s a great thing that the movie looks like a million bucks, because the screenplay byGene Towne and Charles Graham Baker (“Danger Signal”) has a couple of stumbles. Making Jo work for the law seems like it’s laying things on pretty thick, and her almost-irrational decision to go on the run with Eddie could have been better set up in the scenes leading up to the moment. Likewise, Eddie’s full-on hatred of Jo and the way he blames her for being imprisoned feels undeveloped and awkward. Sidney and Fonda are both excellent actors who do fine work throughout most of the running time, but even they stumble in the above scenes. The screenplay is better when it leans into its major theme of fate verses allowing your decisions to change your destiny – passages touching on this are all sterling.

This is the second of three collaborations between Lang and Sidney, the first being “Fury” and the other being a comedic send-up of gangster movies called “You and Me.” I can see why he liked working with her… aside from the fact that she looks very good on film. She has a diversity to performance, able to shift subtly to whatever tone Lang was going for, even if (as evidenced by my last paragraph) it doesn’t make logical sense for the character to behave that way. “You and Me” is a bananas film – it’s partially a musical and co-stars George Raft in perhaps his only halfway decent performance. There’s this moment in it where Sidney convinces a hoard of gangsters to not steal from her place of business by rolling up a chalkboard and, though simple mathematics, explain how breaking the law won’t actually get you a big profit. Not a lot of actresses can pull off such an audacious moment. Sidney can.

The film is also famous… well, maybe infamous… for its violence. Released after the production code went into effect, allegedly at least 10 minutes of brutality were cut at the behest of censors before the movie could be released. Exact times vary depending on what you are reading – anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. And it’s often obvious where things were cut, particularly in the final act when Jo and Eddie are on the run together. The reward for catching them increasing from $5,000 to $10,000, but the only thing we see them do is hold up a gas station. It’s pretty clear there was footage of them brutally beating or murdering other innocents here that didn’t make it. But then there are other questions, like if there were scenes of Jo deciding to turn to the dark side which were too edgy for the production code? Perhaps. It is a shame because, despite the filmmakers’ best efforts, the holes are quite obvious and I probably would have assumed there were cuts even if I did not know about the censorship before I watched.

Despite the cuts and the wonky parts, “You Only Live Once” is still a film of great power and impact, even moreso than several of its more famous children. It’s worth hunting down. After all, YOLO.

God, I’m sorry for that last line. I’ll do better next time.

Score: ****

The Big Knife

The Film Noir Odyssey

Writer: James Poe

Based on the play by Clifford Odets

Director: Robert Aldrich

Cast: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Rod Steiger, Wendell Corey, Shelley Winters, Jean Hagen

Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo

Music: Frank De Vol

Release: November 25, 1955

Studio: United Artists

“The Big Knife” is one of those movies that isn’t really film noir… but usually gets lumped into the genre by scholars because its cast and creative team is a veritable murderers’ row of noir superstars. Plus it has the words “Big” and “Knife” in its title. It feels like it should be noir, which is more than enough for me.

The film is based on a Broadway play written by the great Clifford Odets after he wrote several noir features in Hollywood (“Deadline at Dawn,” “Humoresque”), got jaded and moved back to New York. The original production was tailored specifically for John Garfield, who headlined it on Broadway but was blacklisted from Hollywood and had died by the time the movie adaptation was underway.

Instead, Jack Palance was cast in the role Garfield originated, playing A-list actor Charlie Castle. He lives in a giant mansion and seems to have every need catered to, but is deeply depressed and desperate to be released from his studio contract. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with his wife Marion (Ida Lupino), who he has repeatedly cheated on. On the day Charlie is due to re-up his contract, studio-head Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger) intervenes, and he has some great blackmail to use against him – Charlie and a studio starlet named Dixie (Shelley Winters) were in a hit-and-run accident. Charlie was driving and the person he hit did not survive.

The film feels very much like an adaptation of a play, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because director Robert Aldrich (“Kiss Me Deadly”) frames Charlie’s mansion as his own, personal prison cell. He may be surrounded by opulence, but it’s a place he’ll never be able to escape from. People come and go by their own whims, whether or not Charlie wants to allow them entrance – each wanting something specific from Charlie and not willing to leave until he or she has it. Well, maybe not Marion, who genuinely seems to want Charlie to become his best self, but her point of view will always be marred by the toxic aspects of their relationship.

The movie is almost two hours and feels much longer than it needs to be – there are three too many comings and goings in James Poe’s too-busy screenplay. The section most easily excised is one focusing on Connie (Jean Hagen) desperately, and pathetically, seducing Charlie. The dialogue there is wooden, Hagen’s performance is just as wooden and this weakness within Charlie’s personality that could have been served better spoken only in dialogue – it feels like an awkward reshoot more than something meant to be there from the start.

The other aspect of the film that sticks out like a sore thumb is Frank De Vol’s heinous film score, which puts ten exclamation points on every important moment, dragging well-rendered moments and performances into wild melodrama when silence would have been much more powerful. It’s one of those rare film scores that is so bad that it repeatedly takes you out of the film itself instead of letting you focus on the ensemble.

And it is a very strong ensemble. Palance at first seems like an odd choice for the role, but is excellent from moment one. He does particularly strong work with Lupino, who is the soul of the film – the two don’t have natural chemistry, which makes their work together all the more fascinating. They come across as a badly mismatched romantic pairing who still love one another very much, which is the entire point of their characters’ relationships. Steiger is a force of nature, and his scenes with Palance are the high points of the film – the two genuinely seem to loathe one another and their exchanges are electric. The rest of the ensemble, minus Hagen, are all very good, with Winters doing exquisite work as an increasingly desperate woman.

Aldrich used many of the same crew members here as he did on his iconic noir “Kiss Me Deadly,” including cinematographer Ernest Laszlo (“While the City Sleeps”). That movie felt dangerous, while this one feels much more measured and zeitgeist chasing. His casting choices feel akin to what director Elia Kazan was doing with his play and novel adaptations at the time, and his camera framing also seems to follow Kazan’s lead instead of his own personal style. There’s an odd main title sequence designed by Saul Bass that feels out of place and not on-tone with the rest of the project. I watch the movie and kind of wish Aldrich had just gotten out of the production’s way – why do directors always feel the need to put bells and whistles on play adaptations when all they really need to do is focus on the performances?

Still, the movie is good. I appreciate thematically what the filmmakers are going for, especially with the finale. Charlie’s suicide after standing up to Hoff was truly shocking, and the way it was handled was just about perfect. The messiness of Charlie’s relationship with Marion always feels genuine, and his desperate connection to Dixie also resonates. Most importantly… it felt like a loss. It hit me in the gut and got me emotional in a way I did not expect.

“The Big Knife” is an easy recommendation for me, but I’m happy I got to it five years into this Odyssey instead of right off the bat. I have grown to love all these actors and creators, and this felt like a nice bonus gift, even if there weren’t any gumshoes or gunplay to be found.

Score: ***1/2