#Reference from “Out of the Past” 1947 noir film

[desertmile]

My first attempt at drawing Nick Valentine (Fallout 4) and my 'sole-survivor' Velvet Young.

The two are taking a break from following Eddie Winter's tracks.

reference used from 1947 noir film "out of the past" - thanks @chell-lesbian

[chell-lesbian]

happy valentine's day! you know I had to

reference used from 1947 noir film "out of the past" which....

(featuring my railroad/institute sole, alaina!)

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

A BRIDGE TOO NOIR

This past weekend Your Humble Narrator made his way west to attend the 25th annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival at the Camelot Theatre in Palm Springs, California.

As in past years, the fest offered a slate of black-and-white crime films from the '40s and '50s. Also as in past years, some of them inevitably strained the definition of noir; this year's schedule included a Sherlock Holmes movie, 1944's The Scarlet Claw, and a Western, Day of the Outlaw (1959). But so what? The definition of noir as a genre is nebulous anyway. The point is that the chance to see cool old flicks like these on a movie screen doesn't come along every day. For sheer entertainment, this may be the most reliably enjoyable film festival in the country.

Also on the schedule were such familiar entries as the John Garfield boxing drama Body and Soul (1947), Anthony Mann's outstanding and still relevant 1949 immigration thriller Border Incident, with George Murphy and Ricardo Montalban, and the hard-boiled thrillers Dead Reckoning (1947) and The Enforcer (1951), both starring noir king Humphrey Bogart. But some of us are most likely to be drawn to the relative obscurities.

This year, for instance, brought the opportunity to see No Man of Her Own (1950). In his onstage introduction to the film at the Camelot, TCM Noir Alley host Eddie Muller repeatedly referred to star Barbara Stanwyck as "the greatest actress in movie history." I'd certainly put her in the top five, anyway, and she's in fine, intense form in this adaptation of the classic Cornell Woolrich novel I Married a Dead Man (originally published under his pseudonym, William Irish).

She plays the heck out of a down-on-her-luck pregnant woman who, through circumstances generously described as coincidental, is able to pass herself off as the new daughter-in-law of a wealthy couple whose son has just died. Despite the obvious absurdities of the plot, the film is engrossing and even moving because of Stanwyck's impassioned star performance, and a fine supporting cast including John Lund, Jane Cowl, Phyllis Thaxter, Richard Denning, Milburn Stone, Carole Matthews as no-nonsense femme fatale and Lyle Bettger in a despicable turn as Stanwyck's sneering blackmailer.

The movie also had, for me, a madeleine of Proustian remembrance: Though I hadn't thought about it in years, the scene in which Stanwyck and Thaxter are upended in a train crash came back to me from childhood with the vividness of an acid flashback. I don't think I saw any of the rest of it back then, but that tidbit had been waiting in the memory banks to be revived for at least half a century.

Other gems this year included Escape in the Fog (1945), with the adorable young Nina Foch dodging Axis spies in San Francisco, and the compelling Southern thriller Woman in Hiding, from 1950.

The woman in question is Ida Lupino, who realizes she's made a major mistake marrying creepy Stephen McNally before the honeymoon even starts. Lupino's delicate beauty contrasts with her gutsy, heartfelt spirit, and director Michael Gordon manages a Hitchcock-worthy sequence set in the stairwell of a hotel. The cast includes, along with Lupino's real-life husband Howard Duff, a bit role by Joe Besser, a later-vintage replacement member of the Three Stooges.

But maybe the real oddity of the schedule was��Across the Bridge (1957), a British feature based on a Graham Greene short story and starring a mannered and sweaty Rod Steiger--with a German accent, no less!--as a short-fused white-collar criminal dodging extradition in a Mexican border town. On his way south he's thrown another man, who he resembles, off the train and stolen his passport, but he ends up with this guy's soulful-faced spaniel, Delores, dogging his footsteps (sorry) and gazing reproachfully up at him.

Directed by Ken Annakin, Across the Bridge was shown in Palm Springs in a fairly crappy digital copy, but the presenter assured us that they're working to get it properly restored. I hope they succeed. It's just about the most Graham Greene-ish thing ever, full of moral limbo south of the border and Mexican women wearing prominent crucifixes. And of course it's via "Delores" (suffering) that Steiger's rotten fugitive finds a fateful sort of redemption. In terms of performance, by the way, even full-tilt Stieger is no match for the beautiful Delores, who steals the movie like a dropped potato chip.

[nettlestonenell]

You can come out from hiding under your desks, now.

Three Reasons You Can Stop Fretting About Peggy Carter in Endgame

It is Nell, Gentle Readers, here to settle your uncertainties and qualm your queasies in the wake of Avengers: Endgame, in particular its finale.

Tumblr (and I) are well-aware at this point (and even, it seems, some covering the fandom-at-large) that Steve’s dance with Peggy in the penultimate moments of Endgame has more than one Peggy and Steggy fan on the edge of their seat—and not always in a good way.

This emotion needs it’s own verb.

Here are the three reasons you’ve got absolutely no excuse to be worried.

But What Happened to Peggy’s Character Development in Agent Carter? Didn’t Steve Just Steal All That from Her? And Her Family? (And US?!?) Did Steve Rogers Just Sort of Murder Peggy’s Children and Grandchildren? In the Name of Love? Did I Just Watch That?

Take a breath, Peggy fan. Thank you for your support of TV-Peggy, but according to Avengers: Endgame’s in-film explanation [and multiple post-opening Russo interviews, if you accept those into canon], nothing done in the past/time heist portion in the film negates what we’ve already seen and know to have happened IN THE MAIN MCU TIMELINE (which I’ll now call ‘ours’). So Peggy DID all the things we saw her do, including become a wife and mom and grandmom and co-create and run SHIELD…and die. That can’t be unwritten or taken away from her. From “Our” Timeline Peggy.

Please put down the gun, Agent. We’ll handle it from here.

Something to notice is that the two guys who wrote Endgame, Markus and McFeely? Well, they’re actually the two guys who are credited as “Created by” for Marvel’s Agent Carter. They served as Executive Producers on the show. They wrote The First Avenger. The Peggy Carter we know (“Our” Peggy) is courtesy them directly building on the comics, for Cap’s first film, AND for the TV show. [We also cannot forget Kevin Feige, who produced The First Avenger and the TV show, AND the 2013 One-shot. Peggy is part of his hard work, too.] These are the guys who cared about and remembered James D’Arcy’s top-shelf performance as TV Jarvis, who said, of all the people they could have picked to include in the biggest movie ever to be released on this planet: yes, we want to put him in our film, most people won’t get it at all, some will get the Jarvis comics reference, and a few—we happy few—will know exactly what is going on and our hearts will grow three sizes in three seconds. This is a choice we make, because we love that show and that story, and those characters.

We as fans love Peggy Carter, yes. But these guys? These guys LOVE Peggy Carter. They’ve placed her centrally into the MCU, they’ve thought about and developed and worked on her and her journey for a decade (even before 2011 when TFA was released) . Is it logical they’d then turn around and just…set fire to the thing? Over-writing and backspacing their story and that character’s development?

And so do McFeely and Markus and Feige, Peg. So do they.

Speaking of that 2013 One-Shot, Have You Seen It?

It was attached to the DVD release of Iron Man 3, and it became a backdoor pilot to the TV series. So? Well, if you’ve watched it, Gentle Readers, you will know that it…cannot be canon if we are meant to accept ONLY Marvel’s Agent Carter TV Series and “Our” Peggy. It’s contradictory, Peggy is not entirely as we’ve come to know her. It’s a different Peggy.

Two interchangeable white men in suits and positions of power? Who ever heard of such trickery!

See, with the time travel rules and notions set up in Endgame, the multiple tellings of Peggy Carter’s story actually…work in greater harmony than ever before. Think about it:

The Peggy Carter in TFA doesn’t have the shaky standing among co-workers and on-going struggle to accept her own worth over how others treat her that is given to/developed for her in Marvel’s Agent Carter TV Show. That new (but necessary to dramatic progress) character beat was created and introduced in the TV show.

The Agent Carter One-Shot Peggy is NEITHER the Peggy nor the SSR agents that we meet and watch in the TV Show.

And the Peggy dancing with Steve in Endgame is NOT “our” Peggy. She’s Peggy at a different point than when we knew her—or, Peggy at the LAST point we knew her, about to change and grow beyond our understanding of her with Steve re-arrival.

She is Peggy (just like the One-Shot is Peggy), same skill-set—but different life experiences.

You Can Choose to Believe What You Like About that Dance.

It’s not going to be elaborated on any more than it has been on film. And here, ultimately, is your saving grace. Here, is the possibility of harmonizing Our Peggy with Branch Reality Peggy. Please thank Kevin Feige and McFeely and Markus for this. For leaving that shot unexplained, inexplicit, but open to eternal speculation.

It is never good to die without finishing a poem. Just ask Coleridge.

And here is what Nell is going to believe about that dance, and why.

Number One: The song choice, yes, it’s a WWII tune, but it could be playing at any time. Nostalgia is strong in all generations, but of course Peggy and Steve might dance to a song from that time—they could dance to that record in 1947 or 1957 or 1967. It’s about memories. So, the song being used as they dance is no real year-locative indicator. It’s timeless.

Number Two: The house. And here’s what I know. The house shown is a California bungalow, built predominately in warm US climates from 1910-1939. It’s a very particular style of house—not one you’d find in New York City (or Brooklyn). We are shown that house, and a small yard—and no other houses or buildings in-shot. So, clearly not in the city. [see Number Three]

Picture for architectural reference only.

The house has a yellow exterior. Is there, um, anybody from the TV Series we associate with the color yellow? Who ALSO had a California bungalow-style house—in California? Whose interior was painted yellow? Could it be this person’s house? And maybe they’re…gone?

You gotta love a man w/ a consistent aesthetic.

Number Three: Keen-eyed viewers of both seasons of the TV Show will recall both a shift in fictional and actual location from Season One being in NYC to Season Two moving to California. With this came a significant shift in cinematography. Suddenly, Agent Carter was sun-infused, the camera leaving things so sun-dappled it sometimes bordered on being out-of-focus.

Above, Season One Agent Carter. An homage to noir.

Above, Season Two Agent Carter. Let the sun shine in.

That’s exactly how the dancing scene was shot.

Conclusion: This scene is set in California, therefore, after Peggy moved there from NYC, as she stated she was about to do in the series finale.

Number Four: Steve Rogers knows the details of “our” Peggy’s life. He would know when she married, to whom, all about her children. He would know her timeline. We can’t know what became of her husband (whom we generally assume to be Daniel Sousa), only that he is absent from photos at her aged bedside. It would be no huge stretch to wonder if he hadn’t been killed working for the SSR. If this were true, Cap would know that as well. Being a widow would not negate Peggy’s children, nor prevent Cap from coming on-board and helping raise them. Or the two of them having children of their own.

No doubt, this photo was on the other side of Peggy’s bed when she was in care.

It’s no great stretch at all to go forward understanding that Cap’s arrival could show up the day after Agent Carter’s series finale episode set around 1947—or even fifteen years later.

Bottom Line? Cap knows more about “our” Peggy’s life than we do, and whenever he chose to stop in and stay [and maybe he co-ordinated it with returning one of the stones, such as in 1970—the dancing clip is rendered timelessly, and will take closer scrutiny to try and date it through Peggy’s dress, hair, and possible wrinkles-given] he would do so in a way so that he (and the writers) would rob Peggy and her family of nothing.*

Because that’s who Steve Rogers (and the screenwriters that created the film version of him and Peggy) is.

Peggy’s known. Peggy’s always known.

*Right after he managed to rescue Branch-Bucky.** **After stealing more Pym Particles as he replaced the Tesseract in 1970.

Sleep tight, Gentle Readers, Cap hasn’t disappointed you—or Peggy. He (and Feige, and McFeely and Markus) have just made it so you can

[melanieayres-ad714]

Visual Research

Setting the Scene

Once we had decided on our character, we looked into how we wanted to create the world and the scene our character exists in. Often in Murder Mysteries the Victim is seen or described as being on the floor, after being attacked. 

However, we thought it might be more interesting as we were limited on set and prop choices, if the character was found slumped in a chair or was sat down when they were murdered. This could also help to imply more clearly that our character was murdered in an interior setting, rather than an exterior one.

Below is the scene from Knives Out where the wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombey has been found with his neck slit.

Gucci Campaign

Next, we began looking into visual references, photoshoots and the lighting styles we wanted to create in our photographic images. This 2012 Fall Campaign by Gucci appears to be reminiscent of both film noir and murder mystery genre films.

Photographed by Mert and Marcus, the lighting used is low-key, focusing on the face, shoulders and hair of the models. This in turn, creates long silhouettes and dark shadowy areas surrounding the central figures, which implies a sinister setting. The angle of the camera further implies this, by being positioned above looking down on the subject, it feels the models are being watched and therefore works to make the viewer feel uneasy.

Melanie Pullen 

LA based photographer Melanie Pullen created a series of images called High Fashion Crime Scenes (2003-2017), based on details from the files of The Los Angeles Police Department and The LA County Coroner’s Office, the series depicts the victims in a variety of elaborately staged settings.

I began recreating crime scene photos for many reasons, but one of them is that in all their darkness, they’re a completed story – each a perfect photograph, a still shot that captures the final moment and if you look closely enough, always tell a tale. I think this is why so many photographers became fascinated with the subject in the 1940s and 50s. (Pullen, 2007)

In order to help create a sense of atmosphere and mise-en-sense, Pullen incorporated lighting effects usually seen in film and worked with professional cinematographers for advice on creating her settings. Similar to the Gucci campaign, the use of focused lighting in specific areas leads the eye of the viewer and creates shadows and silhouettes in other areas. This creates high contrasts in the images, which helps the settings to look and feel more dramatic to the viewer.

This final image by Melanie Pullen features a clearly visible wound on the models chest. The wound in this image works to make it clearer the model is supposed to represent a murder victim. This is again highlighted by the use of focused lighting, however the use of a closer camera position helps to draw the viewers eye specifically to the wound. I feel this image could be particularly useful for our photoshoot as we are looking at how lighting and camera choices effect the look and feel of our own prosthetics.

Film Noir

Film Noir is a cinematic term used to describe Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those made in The 1940s and 1950s.  Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. 

I feel there is a strong visual correlation between the images above and film noir genre of films. The lighting used in film noir also features a stark high-contrast lighting and tilted cameras to present skewed images. In some images there is  a dark atmosphere in which only the faces of the actors are visible, this and the lighting used makes otherwise normal scenes appear more dramatic and tense.

References:

Pullen, M. (2007). Melanie Pullen: High Fashion Crime Scenes. Interviewed by Micamera Lens Based Art, 18th September 2007. Available at: http://www.micamera.it/portfolio/melanie-pullen-high-fashion-crime-scenes/?lang=en

Out of the Past. 1947. [DVD] Directed by J. Tourneur. United States: RKO Radio Pictures.

The Big Combo. 1955. [DVD] Directed by J. Lewis. United States: Allied Artists Pictures.

The Big Sleep. 1946. [DVD] Directed by H. Hawks. United States: Warner Bros.

[stillellensibley]

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

by Merrick Doll

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a German film from 1920, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, both of whom emerged from World War I strongly embittered against the wartime government.  The two writers used the powerful new medium of film to create an expressionist masterpiece, which became highly successful and is generally regarded as one of the first horror films.  It recounts the story of a mad fair performer and the sleepwalker who he sends to commit murders in the night.

Plot Summary

The plot of Caligari is a frame narrative that begins with Francis sitting in a courtyard with another character.  The two see a seemingly mesmerized woman (Jane) walk by, inspiring Francis to tell the story of some recent, strange events.  The movie then moves to the inner story, set in a fictional North German town, into which a fair has recently moved.  With the fair come Dr. Caligari and his spectacle: a somnambulist (sleepwalker) named Cesare who, in a dreamlike trance, can prophetically answer questions.  Before he is allowed to perform, Caligari must obtain a license from the arrogant town clerk, who laughs at Caligari about his show.  The next morning, this clerk is found stabbed to death.

Francis and his friend Alan attend the fair and step into Caligari’s tent, where they observe Cesare, in a trance, step out of a cabinet and answer questions from the audience.  Alan excitedly asks Cesare how long he has to live, to which Cesare replies, “Until Dawn.”  When dawn comes, Alan is discovered dead, stabbed just like the clerk.  This causes Francis to suspect Caligari and Cesare.

Francis’s investigations into Caligari prove unfruitful, although a copycat killer, who claims he is not the sought-after murder, is caught in the act of trying to kill a woman.  Though this man is in custody, Francis remains suspicious of Caligari and returns in the night to peer through the window of Caligari’s wagon, where he observes the somnambulist asleep in his box.  At the same time, Cesare is in Jane’s room, with a knife poised to stab her, but, struck by her beauty, decides instead to carry her away, pursued by her awoken father and other citizens of the town.  Cesare eventually drops Jane and dies of exhaustion.  Jane later insists that it was Cesare who attacked her, though Francis swears he saw the sleepwalker asleep in Caligari’s wagon.

To further investigate, Francis and a couple of police officers search Caligari’s wagon and discover that the Cesare in the box is actually a dummy.  Caligari escapes and takes refuge in an insane asylum, followed by Francis.  When Francis calls upon the director of the asylum, he is horrorstruck to learn that Caligari and the director are the same person.

The next night, while Caligari sleeps, Francis searches Caligari’s office, finding indisputable evidence of his crimes.  To make Caligari confess, Francis confronts him with the corpse of the dead Cesare, which causes Caligari to go insane and be put into a strait jacket.

The frame then closes as Francis finishes his story.  He and his companion return to the asylum, whereupon they meet a group of other patients, among them Cesare.  When the director appears, Francis accuses him of being Caligari.  Upon hearing this name, the director claims that he now knows Franics’s affliction and will be able to heal him.

Caligari and Expressionism

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is often hailed as a masterpiece of German expressionism.  Kasimir Edschmid defines expressionism as “a reaction against the atom-splitting of Impressionism, which reflects the iridescent ambiguities, disquieting diversity, and ephemeral hues of nature."[1]   To the expressionist, it would be absurd to reproduce the world as purely and simply as it is (Eisner 10); instead, the artist focuses on feelings and perceptions, which reflect expressionism’s relationship to modernism.

Expressionist artists commit themselves to impulses, which results in the desire to express emotion through extreme visuals.  Often, aesthetic value is exchanged for emotional power, and though expressionist artwork may not be the most pleasing to the eye, it nonetheless elicits an emotional response from its viewer.  This is achieved in Caligari through its unique set design.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has become synonymous with cinematic expressionism.[2]  The visuals in the film pay homage to the expressionism in painting as practiced in the 1900s and 1910s (Reimer 71).  Reality is reproduced as if it were reflected in a fun house mirror.  The distortions, however, do not obscure the objects but instead render them in distorted shapes.  Elongated shadows are painted onto set walls, and the streets wind crookedly past houses that are equally crooked.

Everything in the background is off center and slanted, as if it could slide right out of the frame.  The scene in which Cesare looms over the sleeping form of Jane excellently portrays this.  Cesare must first climb through a trapezoidal window into a house whose walls are diagonal.  These walls only serve to match the equally slanted furniture, and all of these effects serve to enhance the distorted reality seen throughout the film.  The world, created to be both familiar and strange, speaks to the physical and psychological horrors Germans experienced after the end of the war (Reimer 72).  According to Kracauer in his From Caligari to Hitler, “to a revolutionized people, expressionism seemed to combine the denial of bourgeois tradition with faith in man’s power feely to shape society and nature.  On account of such virtues it may have cast a spell over many Germans upset by the breakdown of their universe."[3]  Kracauer's discussion of Caligari in his book is one of the most well-known and lasting interpretations of the film.

Interpretations

Kracauer saw the film as a revolutionary story in which Janowitz and Mayer attacked the omnipotence of a state authority that manifested itself in universal conscription and declaration of war during World War I (Kracauer 64).  He saw in Caligari a figure of unlimited authority that idolized power and used this power to violate all human rights and values.  Cesare represents the proxy through which Caligari commits his crimes; he is not a guilty murderer but actually a victim of Caligari himself.  Kracauer claims that Janowitz and Mayer created Cesare “with the dim design of portraying the common man who, under the pressure of compulsory military service, is drilled to kill and to be killed” (Kracauer 65).  The revolutionary aspect of the story becomes apparent in the end, when Francis and reason overpower the insane authority of Caligari.

The frame, however, would appear to negate this revolutionary story.  The revelation that Francis is insane and a patient in the asylum himself casts doubt on the veracity of the story which he recounts, absolving Caligari of his crimes and diminishing the social critique of the story.  Kracauer, however, offers an explanation for this frame.  He claims that the original screenplay written by Janowitz and Mayer did not include the frame at all; the production company and the director Wiene forced the frame, “a change against which the two authors violently protested. But no one heeded them” (Kracauer 66).  Thus a revolutionary film is transformed into a conformist one.

Kracauer believes this frame to reflect a general trend in public thought at the time.  During the postwar years, Germans tended to withdraw from the outside world into the intangible realm of the soul.  “By putting the original into a box, this version faithfully mirrored the general retreat into a shell” (Kracauer 67) and so the original story was not mutilated but framed in symbolism.

The fair also represents the general trend of Germans retreating into a shell to escape the postwar world.  People of all classes and ages enjoy losing themselves in the fair, in the glaring colors and sounds.  This is yet another hint at modernism, in which cities are portrayed with the same mind-numbing effects.  Adults regress back to their childhood days in which games and serious affairs are identical and there is little responsibility (Kracauer 73).  The fair reflected the chaotic condition of postwar Germany.

Thomas Elsaesser, in his Weimar Cinema and After, claims that the purpose of the expressionism and peculiar style of Caligari is simply an attempt to sell itself.  “As entertainment made for profit, Weimar cinema was responsive to the point of clairvoyance to the desires and pleasures as well as anxieties and secret fears of its primary audience."  Another critic who agrees with this assessment is Lotte H. Eisner, who in her The Haunted Screen admits that “German industry immediately latched on to anything of an artistic kind in the belief that it was bound to bring in money in the long run” (Eisner 19).  Her assessment of the movie focuses mostly on its aesthetics and how expressionism is used in the film to create a visual representation of the world in the mind of a madman.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is praised worldwide for its anti-authoritarian message and expressionistic style.  Though this style may have been used only as a way to sell itself, it nonetheless offers a stunning depiction of post-war Germany.  The film is cited as one of the first horror films and influenced the development of film noir.  Caligari remains to this day an important part of the history of German cinema.

↑Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen (Berkeley: University of California, 1969), 10. All subsequent references will be made in the body of the text.

↑Robert Reimer, Historical Dictionary of German Cinema (New York: The Scarecrow, Inc., 2008), 71. All subsequent references will be made in the body of the text.

↑Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler (New York: North Rivers, 1947), 68. All subsequent references will be made in the body of the text.

YouTube Link Text source

[whileiamdying]

DEAD RECKONING

(1947 • Columbia • 100 min)

“Sorry gorgeous I didn’t see what you looked like…” by Tony D’Ambra September 1, 2010

It is as if at a meeting at Columbia Pictures in early 1946 it was decided to make a ‘Film Noir’. John Cromwell’s Dead Reckoning (1947) is so #noir it is a parody of noir: they threw the then non-existent book at the film and produced a glorious pastiche of rip-offs and knowing references not only to earlier noirs but contemporary and future noirs. The picture which was completed on September 22, 1946 – it was released on January 22, 1947 – would have been in production when Nino Frank coined the term ‘film noir’ in his seminal article, A New Kind of Policier: the Criminal Adventure, in Paris, France in August 1946.

The credentials. John Cromwell went on to direct the important noirs, The Racket (1951), Caged (1950), and The Company She Keeps (1951), but he had no track record in noir in 1946, and the team of writers behind the screenplay doesn’t amount to the usual suspects to any degree – but for one exception. The script was adapted from a story by Sidney Biddell and Gerald Adams. Adams went on to script The Next Big Steal (1949) and Armored Car Robbery (1950), and wrote the story for His Kind of Woman (1951 uncredited).  Allen Rivkin who wrote the film treatment, later scripted Gambling House (film) (1950) and Tension (1949). The screenplay was a joint effort of Oliver H.P. Garrett and Steve Fisher. Garrett has no other noir credits, so the perp has to be Fisher who had form. Fisher wrote the stories for I Wake Up Screaming (1941) and Johnny Angel's (1945), and scripted Berlin Correspondent (1942) and Lady in the Lake (1947).

Veteran DP Leo Tover with no other noir credits establishes a strong expressionist cred, and the rococo costume designer Jean Louis squeezes femme-fatale Lizabeth Scott into some seriously flamboyant gowns.

It may be all down to serendipity, but I smell a rat.

The references. Great maxi rip-offs of The Maltese Falcon (1941), High Sierra (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Murder, My Sweet (1944),  The Big Sleep (1946),  Gilda (1946), Out of the Past - 1947, and The File on Thelma Jordon (1950) – I know – I am in some cases talking rip-offs of future noirs – so sue me!

The story.  Humphrey Bogart is a war-hero turned hard-boiled amateur PI – he ran a fleet of cabs before the war – tracking down the mysterious death of an army buddy, who it turns out joined-up to escape a murder rap. Enter Lizabeth Scott as the dead guy’s glamorous but shifty girlfriend. Add a gambling den, hoods, and suspicious cops, and you get a noir – of sorts – the deal is not earnest and too knowing to be taken too seriously. But what fun! Bogie’s lines are classic wise-ass. To a bartender: “Come here sweet-heart”.

The lowdown. The movie opens with Bogart being pursued down a city street at night in the rain, with the wet asphalt glimmering. He loses the pursuers after hiding in a church. He way-lays a padre in the gloom and tells his story in flash-back. Vets Bogart and his buddy are on their way to Washington to get war decorations, but his buddy jumps the train after a press photo is taken. Bogart heads off to find him and find out why the guy has gone AWOL. Bogart traces him to a university town that looks like Chandler’s LA – the guy has been killed in an auto accident. The intrepid Bogie in mufti tracks down the girlfriend, Scott, an ex-chanteuse in a casino fronting as a cabaret, who after reprising her recent chart-hit and making an impression, introduces Bogie to the casino-operator, a suave foreigner engagingly played by Morris Carnovsky, and his sadistic henchman (a great camp turn by Marvin Miller). Well one drink leads to another – the last one spiked – and Bogie wakes up with a heavy hangover in his hotel-room and a stiff in the other twin-bed for company. You get the picture? Then all proceeds apace as Bogie endeavors to find out who killed his buddy and why. There is a double and later a triple-cross, with Bogie falling hard for Scott. The femme-fatale smells of jasmine not honey-suckle, and she just happens to be the casino guy’s wife! The final shoot-out is Out of the Past out of The Big Sleep. I don’t know how Bogie kept a straight face with the almost verbatim rip of the lines from The Maltese Falcon as he drives with Scott soon to hold a gun on him:

Bogart: Then there’s Johnny. When a guy’s pal is killed, he ought to do something. Scott: Don’t you love me? Bogart: That’s the tough part of it, but it’ll pass. Those things do, in time…

The final scene is an angelic Thelma Jordan on a hospital trolley, with death a parachute jump down the High Sierras. “Geronimo.”

[cryptocinema]

Using dramatic reenactments, this Cold War-era U.S. Air Force training film teaches American airmen how to evade capture and make their way home out of hostile territory after being shot down from their aircraft. All the capture evasion skills learned during World War 2 are put to good use, along with lessons learned by the CIA on how to operate in Eastern Europe. The film was shot in a Hollywood "film noire" espionage adventure style and was released in circa 1957*. Plot: A B-29 Superfortress is shot down during an air raid mission, far behind enemy lines. The crew is separated during bail out into small groups. What follows are a series of lessons on what to do - and not to do - to evade capture and make it back to friendly territory. Just a few of the many things you will learn are: evading blood hounds, what to wear - and not to wear - to blend in with the locals, traveling inconspicuously by day and night, identifying civilians most likely to help you make contact with the underground, what to expect from the resistance and how to deal with them, crossing roads and exposed spaces, using misdirection, diversion and bluffing, crossing heavily guarded boarders - and a whole lot more! Some of the crew make it back, while others don't, all told in a very dramatic and engaging feature film. * The date (MCMXLVII / 1947) on the emblem of the U.S. Air Force at the beginning of the film refers to the date of the establishment of the U.S. Air Force (when the U.S. Army Air Forces became the U.S. Air Force) and not to the release date of the movie. This crest will never have another date on it. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) is a program, best known by its military acronym, that provides U.S. military personnel, U.S. Department of Defense civilians, and private military contractors with training in evading capture, survival skills, and the military code of conduct. Established by the U.S. Air Force at the end of World War 2, it was extended and consolidated during the Vietnam War (1959-1975) to the U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy and in the late 1980s to the U.S. Army. Most higher level SERE students are Military Aircrew and Special Operations personnel considered to be at high risk of capture. Based on the experiences of the British and American Pilots who managed to escape and evade from the Germans during World War 2, and return to friendly lines, several private "clubs" were created during World War 2. One such club was the "Late Returners Club". This club which had a "Flying Boot" as its identifying symbol, was strictly non-military. However, under the left collar, of his uniform, the individual who had successfully escaped and/or evaded the enemy pinned the "Flying Boot" and although everyone knew it was not official, they didn't question its wear. The experiences of these Evaders was passed on in lectures, guest appearances, and small regional specific training programs by the US Army Air Corps and in British military programs. Consolidation into a formal (then called "Survival") program of instruction came in 1943. Under the direction of General Curtis LeMay it was realized that it was much cheaper and more effective to train Aircrews in Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape techniques, than to have them languishing in enemy hands. He was responsible for the establishment of SERE training at several bases/locations. Most SERE training focuses on survival and evasion. Skills taught include Woodcraft and Wilderness Survival including Firecraft, Sheltercraft, Traps and Snares, Food & Water Procurement, Preservation and Purifying, Improvised Equipment, and also specific equipment and techniques of Rescue Sciences such as Signaling, Navigation, Route Selection, Emergency First Aid (a variant of the battlefield variety), Camouflage techniques, methods of Evasion, and Communication Protocols, in all types of climate and terrain. Training on how to survive and resist the enemy in the event of capture is largely based on the experiences of past U.S. prisoners of war. USAF Training Film for Downed Airmen | Evading Capture in Enemy Territory | ca. 1957 TBFA_0108 NOTE: THE VIDEO REPRESENTS HISTORY. SINCE IT WAS PRODUCED DECADES AGO, IT HAS HISTORICAL VALUES AND CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. THE VIDEO HAS BEEN UPLOADED WITH EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. ITS TOPIC IS REPRESENTED WITHIN HISTORICAL CONTEXT. THE VIDEO DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSITIVE SCENES AT ALL! THE SCENES ARE PLAYED BY ACTORS.

Published on 1 Apr 2017 4,753 views as of 25 May 2017

[dweemeister]

Friendly Persuasion (1956)

When watching the films of producer/director William Wyler, one notices that his body of work defies categorization. There’s the affluent marriage drama in Dodsworth (1936), the Gone With the Wind-esque warm-up film in Jezebel (1938), film noir The Letter (1940), post-WWII coming-home drama The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and sword-and-sandals epic Ben-Hur (1959). With Friendly Persuasion, Wyler turns to a Quaker family considering their participation in the Civil War – a thematic departure of scores of wartime films, but playing to Wyler’s strengths as an actor-friendly director. For in this film adapted from Jessamyn West’s novel of the same name, an astounding ensemble performance beautifully dramatizes the mental anguish, the tension between central religious tenets and an innate human impulse towards action.

Jennings County, Indiana is the home of the Birdwell family: patriarch Jess (Gary Cooper), matriarch and minister Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), eldest son Josh (Anthony Perkins), middle child Mattie (Phyllis Love), youngest son “Little” Jess (Richard Eyer), and their pet goose Samantha. Despite the American Civil War entering another year, little has changed in the lives of the Birdwells. Jess has a liking for horseracing, Eliza is an active participant at service on Sundays, Mattie retain her love for cavalry officer Gard Jordan (Peter Mark Richman), and “Little” Jess gets into squabbles with Samantha. But the Civil War is encroaching upon Indiana, with Confederate raids across Kentucky (which never joined the CSA, despite not abolishing slavery until 1865) striking fear into southern Indiana border. Friendly Persuasion postures itself as an episodic movie, almost like many Disney live-action movies in the 1950s and 60s. But as Morgan’s Raid commences, convictions are tested and difficult decisions must be made.

Officially, Quakers are known as the Religious Society of Friends, referring to each other as “Friends”. Hence, Friendly Persuasion. Quakers are typically rigid pacifists and, in antebellum America, were noted as one of the earliest and most vehement supporters of the abolitionist movement. Friendly Persuasion is one of a handful – maybe even a quarter-handful – of films that portray adherents and practitioners of Quaker beliefs with the utmost respect, allowing certain details of Quaker life in that most have not cared to learn about. A scene juxtaposing the near-silent, gender-segregated, and unorganized (as opposed to disorganized, which connotes a lack of control) Quaker meetings on Sundays with the nearby rambunctious service of a Methodist church is an early introduction into the differences between expectations for the dominant Christian groups in the United States and the Quaker community the audience is about to be introduced to. The dichotomy here prepares the viewer to set aside those expectations, to anticipate not proselytizing – Quakers, compared to established Evangelical groups, are much less inclined to proselytize – but a presentation of a culture little understood. 

Perhaps most jarring, if not perplexing, to first-time viewers is the substitution of the pronouns, “you”, “your”, and “yours” for “thee”, “thy”, and “thine”. By the Civil War this style of diction remained intact for numerous Quaker communities, but was falling out of style to the point where, today, Quakers have since abandoned this archaic English. Credit screenwriter Michael Wilson – more on Wilson shortly – for inserting those culturally- and temporally-specific pronouns into the screenplay; I would imagine most other writers then and today would attempt to modernize the richly-structured dialogue for the sake of audience accessibility.

Yet there are inconsistencies in Wilson’s screenplay. As beautifully as Quaker life is portrayed and as alternately humorous and evocative Friendly Persuasion’s episodic structure is, the final decisions of Anthony Perkins and Gary Cooper’s characters regarding their participation in the Civil War lacks narrative clarity. Perkins, as Josh Birdwell, has developed belligerent motivations from somewhere or something unspecified. As Friendly Persuasion hurtles towards the breaking point, as Confederate raiders have streamed across the Kentucky-Indiana border, it loses its focus on the precarious dynamic between religious nonviolence and existential tendencies towards self-defense.

One of the most-commented scenes in Friendly Persuasion is also one of the most derided. That would be the opening second involving Little Jess’ narration introducing Samantha the pet goose and acknowledging the constant bickering and violence in Little Jess and Samantha’s love-hate relationship. Some believe that the scene is too comical, too arbitrary, too Disney to be in Friendly Persuasion. But this is our introduction into the pacifism of the Birdwell family, of most in the Quaker community in which they reside. Because soon after, Eliza steps in and scolds her youngest child that violence is not what the family believes in. Her defense of that nonviolence is passionate, ingrained. By portraying this squabble between Little Jess and Samantha, Wilson’s screenplay becomes more efficient by not having to spend precious minutes explaining and lecturing in a more formalized, less “cinematic” setting on Quaker beliefs. 

For Michael Wilson, his screenplay to Friendly Persuasion had been completed in 1946, as Frank Capra’s short-lived independent studio Liberty Films had first purchased the rights earlier that year. But when Liberty Films was running into financial trouble and was dissolved in 1951, the rights were sold to Paramount, which later sold its rights to Allied Artists (which offered a soon-to-be out-of-contract William Wyler full artistic license and control). Within those years between the transfer of production rights, Wilson found himself blacklisted in Hollywood after refusing to provide names of suspected Communist Party members in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during 1951 hearing – this is part of the reason why Friendly Persuasion took so long to be shot and released. Thus, upon release, Friendly Persuasion had no credited writer until Wilson’s credit was posthumously restored in 1996.

At the head of a strong ensemble is Gary Cooper, who was reluctant to star in Friendly Persuasion because of his history of playing proactive characters when violence looms. Audiences would be confused, Cooper reasoned, but the book’s author Jessamyn West convinced Cooper that the very nature of deciding upon inaction is an action in and of itself. “You will furnish your public with the refreshing picture of a strong man refraining,” she told the actor, and Cooper portrays exactly that in the final cut. Though arguments can be made about Cooper’s age (he was 55 then, but this criticism was more salient for his role in Billy Wilder’s 1957 film, Love in the Afternoon), what is clear from the opening minutes is that even a graying Gary Cooper – who reportedly despised his performance in Friendly Persuasion – could still act with a seemingly effortless naturalism that he did in decades past. With subtleties in his facial and physical acting, he conveys thoughts and emotions seamlessly.

Cooper’s co-star, Dorothy McGuire, could also summon similar subtleties but was always less heralded than she deserved. From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), McGuire had already displayed a variety to her craft few other actresses could accomplish. Yet McGuire was one of the last choices for Allied Artists for the role of Eliza Birdwell; Cooper – who, if you couldn’t tell already, didn’t exactly have his heart set on Friendly Persuasion – was initially disappointed in the casting, thinking poorly of McGuire’s acting abilities and her attractiveness. But for the scenes where Eliza encounters Confederate troops and where she is directing the Quakers’ Sunday meeting, McGuire displays some career-best acting, showing incredible discipline in her performance.

But the breakout performance comes from a young 24-year-old Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in 1960′s Psycho), whose appearance in Friendly Persuasion was only his second film role. As the determined, headstrong, loving oldest son of the Birdwell family, Perkins fills his performance with youthful anxiety, wondering about what to do with himself in the world. Before Perkins was typecast post-Psycho, this is Perkins displaying a vulnerability that would soon disappear from his later works. It is a treasure of a youth performance, especially in the scene where his character, Josh, realizes he has reached a wrenching milestone in his short life.

Taking from some of the lush string melodies found in his score to It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Dimitri Tiomkin’s gorgeous score is based upon the song that appears in the opening credits. “Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)” has music composed by Tiomkin, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, and is performed by Pat Boone. As titular theme songs go, “Friendly Persuasion” boasts a memorable string-dominated melody, with incredible harmonies that undergo various arrangements throughout the score (like in “Love Scene in the Barn”). It sets up an idyllic, pastoral lifestyle, which is rearranged into harsher orchestrations and dissonant passages when it is threatened by the incoming war. It might be the finest example of how Tiomkin could incorporate melodies invoking Americana into a film, but his work for Friendly Persuasion is an excellent work that successfully modulates given the film’s different moods that sometimes clash due to the narrative structure.

William Wyler’s Friendly Persuasion is intimately crafted, providing audiences a glimpse of a pacifist narrative more reluctant than that of Sergeant York (1941) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) – these three films would make for an interesting comparative essay in how successful each executes its balance of nonviolence and belligerence and to what extent each film leans towards the notion that violence can be a terrible necessity. The film is always exudes familial warmth. And though it might not be a film of unshakeable moral or religious faith like some of its contemporaries, Friendly Persuasion poses questions rarely asked in American cinema. Even if just for the very presence of that inquiry, it is a remarkable piece in examining one’s conscience in times distraught and dire.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating.

[notesonfilm1]

Forty years after his debut in The Killers ( Robert Siodmak, 1946), Burt Lancaster toplines a major studio film (Disney´s Touchstone Pictures),  capping a legendary partnership with Kirk Douglas. They starred together in I Walk Alone (Byron Haskin, 1947), Gunfight at the Ok Corral (John Sturges, 1957), The Devil´s Disciple (Guy Hamilton, 1959), Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964), did cameos for John Huston in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) and appeared together in the Victory at Entebbe (Marvin Chomsky, 1976) ‘event’ TV Movie. This was their seventh time together and, as you can see in the charming clip below, they were widely perceived as a team by the public, appearing several times together at the Oscars and in this particular clip below bringing down the house with their banter and performance:

    I saw Tough Guys when it came out and found it pleasant but not very good. This time around I enjoyed it even more. I now know their personas better, can flesh out all the echoes of and rhymes with the different epochs of their careers, get the joke when the film makes references to their previous films such as  Gunfight at the OK Corral and so on. But, if anything, I found the film even worse than the first time around.

Tough Guys is a very typical and typically overblown comic action movie of the 80s, with the gym sequence then so prevalent, the throwaway humour, the car chases, the things being blown up behind the protagonists as they throw themselves towards the camera, the action sequences tied together by a song  to add up to a video clip the producers hoped would get heavy rotation on MTV and help market the movie, the ugly synth score and the stuffing of the movie with songs so as as to have an extra revenue and promotion resource from the soundtrack (see the pre-packed ‘MTV montage’ below).

  All of the above made me realise that stars not only develop and change over time, that meanings accrue and change, that they´re different for each generation of filmgoers and across social formations, but also that stardom inhabits forms. As argued and characterised above, Tough Guys is High Concept 80s cinema, it´s ‘Burt and Kirk as tough guys, but they´ve been in jail for 30 years so they and the audience can hark back to their film noir days in the late forties, and the comedy will come from age and cultural dislocation´. I could have cut the tagline to one sentence had I wanted to.

The plot revolves around Harry Doyle (Burt Lancaster) and Archie Long (Kirk Douglas). The film begins as they come out of prison after 30 years for a failed train robbery, the last attempt at one in America, with their late forties/ early 50s hats, sharp suits, and two-toned shoes (see montage of images above). The guard taunts them by saying they’ll be back within the week. Their parole officer, Richie Evans (Dana Carvey), a fan, quickly explains the set-up, sends Archie to a welfare motel and Harry, whose older, to an old folks home. Everything in this new world is strange to them and they can’t abide by the rules, which seem to infantilise and dismiss the old as asexual, brainless and without agency. Moreover, they have two people on their tail, a hit man who’d been hired to kill them 30 years before and has been waiting ever since (Eli Wallach) and the cop responsible for sending them to prison in the first place, who believes they’ll never reform and is merely waiting for them to set up the next hit (Charles Durning).

To pursue this idea of stardom inhabiting forms, just think of how the very first scenes immediately recall the 4:3 underworld of shadows and crime that is Lancaster’s first star persona, the guy from The Killers, Brute Force, Criss Cross, Kiss the Blood of My Hands, and with Kirk, also in a narrative about an ex-con let loose in a world he doesn’t recognise, I Walk Alone. 

Then think too about the ´Muscles and Teeth’ roles in The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, still in 4.3 but now in vibrant technicolour. One can also chart Burt Lancaster’s development as a star in Westerns, the move from the 4:3, black and white of Vengeance Valley in ’51, through the Technicolour SuperScope of Vera Cruz, right up to the Cinerama of The Hallellujah Trail, and then, as his stardom diminished, back to the then standard widescreen of Valdez is Coming or Ulzana’s Raid.

Think too of how the seriousness Burt Lancaster signified is so often associated with John Frankenheimer’s wide-screen black and white aesthetic, the experimentation with compositions and angles, as well as with the seriousness of theme. Or how seeing Lancaster pictured in Richard Aldrich’s  fractured, suspenseful and imaginative split screen in Twilight’s Last Gleaming also communicates aspects of Lancaster’s persona in the late 70s, purposeful, serious, committed, an old pro trying to be newly dynamic and ‘with it’.

In Tough Guys, Burt and Kirk are newly burnished for High Concept stardom but see above how the big spectacular finale, harks back to Westerns, but now with helicopters on the chases instead of Indians.

  Even from behind and past 70, Burt walks gracefully. Kirk is the other one. Kirk’s always doing bits of business, Burt is relatively minimalist, paired down: that’s why their chemistry is so good, perfect counterpoint. And that is and was evident to even those who´d never seen them in anything else together. The film is a very pleasurable, if not good, send-off to a legendary team.

    Jose Arroyo

        Tough Guys (Jeff Kanew, USA, 1986) Forty years after his debut in The Killers ( Robert Siodmak, 1946), Burt Lancaster toplines a major studio film (Disney´s Touchstone Pictures),  capping a legendary partnership with Kirk Douglas.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Out of the Past: Noir City: Chicago is Back for 10th Year

This year's Noir City: Chicago seemingly borrows a title from classic of the genre itself: Out of the Past. 

For the 10th anniversary of the Chicago edition of their traveling festival, which runs August 17 to 23 at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, programmers Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode have taken a page from the golden age of Hollywood. Each day of the weeklong event pairs two A and B titles for a double bill of maximum noir. (The term “B movie” of course was used to define films programmed as the lesser half of a double feature.)

“This year’s programming concept does seem really simple,” said Muller, founder and president of the San Francisco-based Film Noir Foundation, which presents the festival, with sponsorship from Turner Classic Movies’ weekly “Noir Alley” showcase (hosted by Muller, a.k.a. “The Czar of Noir” himself). He also will introduce films during the festival’s opening weekend at the Music Box. “The irony is that we’re doing what they were doing 70 years ago.”

Earlier this year, for the San Francisco edition of Noir City, Muller used the same concept, and “it was kind of revelatory,” he said. “It really focused my intros, and by programming this kind of double bills, we could address things that were different from year to year. By 1947-’48, noir was in full flower. It really wasn’t a movement until then. As it went forward, it changed and morphed into something different. It’s also a great way of balancing a well-known film with something more obscure that you couldn’t fit in otherwise.” 

Rode, Muller’s partner in noirdom (and an FNF director-treasurer), reports the concept worked really well when they reprised it in Hollywood in April. “We had to cheat a bit to program ‘The Scarlet Hour’ (pictured below) since it’s a 1956 B-release paired with a 1952 A-title ‘The Turning Point.’” But they couldn’t resist because it’s a rarely seen noir by Hollywood heavyweight Michael Curtiz (the subject of Rode’s latest book, Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film, as well as a current retrospective at the Music Box).

“It’s exciting to show ‘The Scarlet Hour’ because it’s a real rarity,” said Rode, who will intro the second half of the Noir City lineup at the Music Box. Other than noir aficionados, “it’s sad that no one is interested in seeing films like this. We’re dealing with a generation who thinks Bill Murray in ‘Ghostbusters’ is a golden-age movie.”

In the past, all Noir City titles were shown in 35mm, but Muller and Rode have bowed to changing times. “If you want to hold out, you’re not going to be able to show certain titles,” Muller said. “‘The Scarlet Hour’ is a 35mm print from the archives. It might be the last one we ever get. In the future, we’re going to get them in digital restorations. That’s the way it is. But I would prefer to show a restored digital version of a film instead of being a stickler and insisting on a print that’s possibly worn out.”

Rode points out that Paramount quit making prints about seven years ago and other studios have followed suit. “I do have to say that some of the DCPs that Paramount has done are gorgeous,” he said. “They have that granular look, it doesn’t look artificial. If you want to see some of these films, DCP is going to be the medium of choice.”

This year’s festival kicks off with two ’90s neo-noirs directed by Carl Franklin, “One False Move” and “Devil in a Blue Dress.” “As much as I’m loyal to hard-core fans who want to see older, classic movies, I want to be able to take advantage of the moment,” Muller said. “It’s important to show that noir is not calcified. I see a natural extension from noir to current cinema. Plus, it’s interesting to see the African-American perspective on this genre.” Though he’s currently making a film in Pittsburgh, Franklin will appear opening night for post-screening discussions. “He’s willing to go the extra mile to be in Chicago for Noir City,” Muller said.  

“For our 10th year in Chicago, it’s a terrific lineup and somewhat of a milestone,” Rode said. “It’s always great to come to the Music Box and continue relationships we’ve developed over the years. Even when the Cubs are playing, the Music Box is the place to be.” 

Here’s the lineup of Noir City: Chicago 2018, with commentary by Muller and Rode:

“Devil in a Blue Dress” (1995), Aug. 17, 7 p.m.: Based on the first book of Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series, “Devil” follows a ’40s-era detective (Denzel Washington) assigned to find a society woman hiding out in L.A.’s black neighborhoods. “Modern updates of classic noir typically don’t do well,” Muller said. “Hollywood thought ‘L.A. Confidential’ was a flop. The same with this title. However, it features Denzel at his most sexy and most movie star-ish.”

“One False Move” (1992), Aug. 17, 9:45 p.m.: Muller calls Carl Franklin’s breakthrough movie, about a hayseed cop (Bill Paxton) trying to root out a gang of killers, “one of the great crime films ever made. We’re showing it second, because it’s hard to watch. People might walk out because of the violence, the first scene is really intense. Also, it’s a good way to salute Bill Paxton”—who died last year at age 61. “His death didn’t really register. It’s one thing when it’s Tab Hunter [who died three days shy of his 87th birthday in July] but when it’s someone as young as Bill—that’s tragic. Noir City revives golden-age movies that people have missed, and now that applies to films from the ’80s and ’90s as well. Billy Bob Thornton co-wrote the script, and its race-related themes are still timely 25 years later.”

“Conflict” (1945), Aug. 18, 3 p.m.: Reverting to his heavy roles after his transformation as a romantic hero in “Casablanca” (1942), Humphrey Bogart plays a murderous husband with designs on his wife's sister. Rode regards “Conflict” as “one of Bogie's most overlooked films,” in part because the title was shelved for two years over a rights issue. 

“Bogie hated making the movie, it was too close to his own life,” Muller said, referring to the actor's rocky relationship with third wife Mayo Methot. “‘Conflict’ was Jack Warner’s payback.” Instead of cashing in on the star’s new appeal, the studio chief “wanted to stick it to Bogie” to show him who still remained the boss,” Muller said. “But his plan backfired, because after “Casablanca,” “the public didn’t want Bogie to be a bad guy anymore.”

“Escape in the Fog” (1945), Aug. 18, 5 p.m.: For the watershed noir year of 1945, “we had a lot of movies to choose from,” Muller said of this thriller about an Army nurse (Nina Foch) terrified by a recurring dream in which she witnesses a murder on the Golden Gate Bridge. “But ‘Escape in the Fog”—it’s Budd Boetticher,” referring to the Chicago-born director, best known for his seminal Westerns of the ’50s. “It’s great to see something early from him. I love to show films by directors who are going on to bigger things ... and it’s from Columbia, which always supplies us gorgeous 35mm prints.”

“The Blue Dahlia” (1946), Aug. 18, 7 p.m.: This classic noir, penned by Chicago-born crime-fiction icon Raymond Chandler, gives Alan Ladd one of his signature roles as a returning soldier accused of murdering his unfaithful wife (Doris Dowling). It reteams Ladd with Veronica Lake, after their successes as Paramount’s leading romantic duo in “This Gun for Hire” (1942) and “The Glass Key” (1942). 

Muller finds it mystifying that Ladd has been virtually forgotten by modern audiences, unlike fellow noir heroes Bogart and Robert Mitchum, and that Lake continues to be dismissed as a mere vamp (albeit with a stylin’ hairdo). “People had such a wrong notion of what she was on screen,” he said. “She was not a femme fatale. Lake was brainy and didn’t need the guy. ‘The Blue Dahlia’ is a classic example of that. I don’t like the idea that women were sexy dames just out to corrupt men. Plus, her films projected a very significant image during the war for American women.”

“Strange Impersonation” (1946), Aug. 18, 9:15 p.m.: Beset by blackmail, a scheming assistant, a disfiguring accident and romantic betrayal, a research scientist (Brenda Marshall) plots her revenge. “I have a soft spot for B movies that make absolutely no sense,” Muller said of this pivotal early film by director Anthony Mann. “I love the ones where there's some sort of weird science in a crime film. And this film is right in that sweet spot."

Rode calls “Strange Impersonation” “one of most bizarre movies ever made … it’s 68 minutes of real weirdness absolutely not to be missed.”

“The Unsuspected” (1947), Aug. 19, 2 p.m.: After the secretary of a radio personality (Claude Rains) turns up dead, he hints at murder. “This film marks Michael Curtiz’s first production away from Warner Bros [his longtime studio home],” Rode said. “He was trying to do something similar to ‘Laura,’ but didn’t turn out that way. Claude Rains is great and gives the perspective of the role that radio that played in pop culture back then. Plus, the camera work by Curtiz and cinematographer Woody Bredell is something to behold.”

Muller added, “I’m always on lookout for noir written by women. The Charlotte Armstrong novel [adapted by Bess Meredyth and Ranald MacDougall] is really good. ‘The Unsuspected’ is just juicy, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but with a cast like Claude Rains and Audrey Totter, it doesn’t have to.”

“Blind Spot” (1947), Aug. 19, 4:15 p.m.: Of this fast and furiously paced B, Muller observed: “It’s a very cleverly written film about cleverly written stories … a very smart and savvy commentary on literary vs. genre fiction.” Chester Morris, best known for the ��Boston Blackie” series, plays a down-on-his-luck writer who pens a murder mystery to show how easy it is, “and then he blacks out and can’t recall the ending, and he’s the prime suspect.”

Muller also applauds the performance of Constance Dowling (older sister of Doris) as a secretary/dangerous blonde. “Look her up on the internet,” he said. “She became Elia Kazan’s mistress, then her next lover committed suicide over her. She’s quite beguiling on screen.” 

“I Walk Alone” (1948), Aug. 19, 6:15 p.m.: After a 14-year stretch in the slam, a Prohibition-era bootlegger (Burt Lancaster) discovers his former partner (Kirk Douglas) has no intention of sharing the profits of their previous spoils. “It’s a great cast, with Burt and Kirk in the first of the seven films they made together, along with the always amazing Lizabeth Scott—a star fest in a cool Hal Wallis production,” Muller said.

Its source elements once considered lost, “I Walk Alone” has been restored by Paramount and will be shown in DCP format. “I’m happy my relationship with studios leads to these kinds of rediscoveries,” Muller said. “The Film Noir Foundation is the impetus for a studio like Paramount to find the original elements, do a digital scan and then create a new DCP. Kino will release the film in a Blu-ray edition this fall. All of this resulted because of me being a pain in the ass all these years.”

“Bodyguard” (1948), Aug. 19, 8:30 p.m.: After getting bounced for insubordination, a homicide detective (Lawrence Tierney) takes a job in a meat-packing plant where an inspector has been ground up along with the product. “It’s one of [director] Richard Fleischer’s down and dirty noirs,” Rode said. “He didn’t truly move into the noir groove until ‘Narrow Margin,’” referring to the director’s 1952 classic noir on a train. “Plus, it stars Tierney, the meanest man in film noir. And one of the writing credits is by Robert Altman, then just 23.”

“Lawrence Tierney, what can I say?” Muller said. “‘Bodyguard' is great, terrific and so entertaining. I stay in the theater and watch it every time because Tierney is always so intriguing on the screen.”

“All My Sons” (1949), Aug. 20, 7 p.m.: Muller and Rode admit that this film version of Arthur Miller’s Tony Award-winning drama about an ethically challenged businessman (Edward G. Robinson) and the failure of the American dream is “not really noir but noir-stained.” They both believe in stretching the boundaries of noir when appropriate. “Plus, its theme about a guy profiting from war and the guilt he faces over manufacturing defective parts has resonance to this day.”

Rode observes that “All My Sons” is another completely overlooked film—it’s not on DVD, not available on streaming platforms. Robinson gives one of his great performances opposite Burt Lancaster [as one of Robinson’s sons]. They’re both so good, and the film features lots of great character actors, including Harry Morgan and Lloyd Gough.”

“The Spiritualist” (1949), Aug. 20, 9:15 p.m.: A shady medium (Turhan Bey) persuades a widow that he can communicate with her late husband in what Muller and Rode consider an underappreciated gem from master cinematographer John Alton, who virtually invented the look of film noir in the ’40s. “Again, it’s as good as B movies get,” Muller said of this Eagle-Lion programmer also known as “The Amazing Mr. X.” “John Alton’s one of my faves—it’s more his movie than the director [Bernard Vorhaus]. You can tell that Alton is calling the shots. I showed it years ago, and Bey showed up, and that’s what he said, too. He told story after story about what a genius Alton was, dictating the whole day’s shoots according to his lighting scheme.”

Rode also recalls that 2000 screening in Los Angeles of “The Spiritualist,” when Bey appeared unexpectedly: “No one knew he was. He asked, ‘Where are all the great character actors I used to work with?’ Very sweet guy. The only print we had was a bad one with splices, and the film broke three times.”

“The Man Who Cheated Himself” (1950), Aug. 21, 7 p.m.: A veteran homicide detective (Lee J. Cobb) involved with a married socialite (Jane Wyatt) covers up a murder and then discovers that his rookie brother (John Dall) has been assigned to the case. Muller claims Felix E. Feist’s crime drama has “the weirdest casting ever in a noir.” 

Rode agrees: “Lee J. Cobb finally, just off his breakthrough role on Broadway in ‘Death of a Salesman,’ finally plays someone his own age, this time as a horn-dog detective, opposite Wyatt, usually the paragon of virtue.” Shot on location in San Francisco, “it’s really worthwhile.”

At the Music Box, “The Man Who Cheated Himself” will be shown in a restored 35mm print, funded by the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. 

“I Was a Shoplifter” (1950), Aug. 21, 9 p.m.: This programmer about an undercover cop (Scott Brady) and a five-finger discount ring is a real rarity, and even more remarkable, Muller reports he has never seen it: “We realized in it was in Universal’s archives; Alan swears it’s worthwhile. There are films I consciously don’t watch because I’m saving them. When I’m 75, I want to have films to look forward to.”

Rode confirms the movie’s bona fides. “It stars Scott Brady, the good brother of Tierney family,” he said of the actor, the middle sibling of the Tierney acting clan. “They were on completely different sides of the spectrum in most movies.” Shot on location in Los Angeles and San Diego, “I Was a Shoplifter” features Rock Hudson, Peggie Castle and James Best in bit roles, and Tony Curtis as a sinister sidekick improbably named Pepe.

“The People Against O’Hara” (1951), Aug. 22, 7 p.m.: In his only film noir, Spencer Tracy plays an alcoholic attorney who comes out of retirement to defend a neighbor’s son (James Arness, later of “Gunsmoke” fame) against a homicide charge. “Tracy’s character cuts close to the bone,” Rode said of this film, directed by Oak Park native John Sturges, best known for his epic actioners such as “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) and “The Great Escape” (1963).

Muller again lauds the camerawork of John Alton: “one of the many Hungarians who transformed Hollywood. His career completely coincided with the rise of noir. After 1947, he was the go-to guy for the genre.”

“Pickup” (1951), Aug. 22, 9:15 p.m.: Of this lurid potboiler about an older man duped by a femme fatale, Rode said, “the moment this one starts, you know you’re not talking about a truck.” Beverly Michaels, the film’s deadly dame, was married to Russell Rouse, author of the classic noir “D.O.A.” (1949), in real life. Their son is Oscar-winning editor Christopher Rouse (“The Bourne Ultimatum”). “I once asked him how it was like growing up in a noir nuclear family,” Rode said. Meanwhile, “Hugo Haas spent his career making bad remakes of ‘The Postman Rings Twice,’ with an older man being tormented by a younger woman.” And in “Pickup,” Haas plays the beleaguered husband (named Jan “Hunky” Horak) himself.

Once reviled as “the foreign Ed Wood,” Haas deserves more respect. “I find his movies hugely entertaining, and fans go nuts for them,” Muller said. “I love his backstory. He was an esteemed actor in Moravia [now part of the Czech Republic]. When he came to the U.S., his compatriots were embittered by their lower status, but he wasn’t afraid to embrace the low-budget mystique. All of his films made money, and he worked with fabulous actresses. His formula was absolutely flawless. I have nothing but admiration for Hugo Haas.”

“The Turning Point” (1952), Aug. 23, 7 p.m.: When a reporter (William Holden) and a prosecutor (Edmond O’Brien) investigate a crime syndicate, they discover a family member might be on the take. “It’s a great cast, with a panoply of character actors,” Rode said. “When Ted de Corsia [known for his many villainous roles] plays a voice of reason, you know it’s serious.” 

A riff on the Kefauver Commission probe into organized crime in the early ’50s, “The Turning Point” was filmed on location in Los Angeles, with scenes set at iconic spots such as Angel’s Flight and the Bunker Hill neighborhood. It was directed by German emigré William Dieterle, who notched up a few noirs in his extensive filmography. “I think he’s underrated, he was a protege of Curtiz’s,” Rode said. “It’s not just a crime expose, there’s a definite noir element.”

Muller notes that the Film Noir Foundation had pursued this Paramount release for years and finally persuaded the studio to restore the title, which be shown in the DCP format. “It’s much like ‘I Walk Alone.’ I thank Paramount for rescuing it,” he said. “How did this movie slip through the cracks? I think this film will surprise, because it’s much darker and bleak than people realize.”

“The Scarlet Hour” (1956), Aug. 23, 9 p.m.: Michael Curtiz’s thriller pits an adulterous pair (newcomers Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon) against a possessive husband (James Gregory), with a jewel robbery as the lovers’ method of deliverance. “It’s a little over the top, but it’s perfect for what it is in this festival,” Muller said. “This crime drama has so many elements of film noir, but you can see everything changing. It’s such a rarity; I’m so proud finally able to get this film,” which will be shown in an archival 35mm print. “Paramount doesn’t do that anymore—ship an archival print from the vault.”

Rode reminds noir fans that “The Scarlet Hour” is not available on DVD or streaming platforms. “It’s terrible but somehow terrific,” he said. “It was Curtiz’s last chance. He was old and had made several bad movies. This was his opportunity to capitalize on his reputation as a star marker—but Tom Tryon and Carol Ohmart? It didn’t work out, but the movie is often compared to ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice.’ Carol comes across as a really feral fatale.” 

Shot all over Los Angeles, “The Scarlet Hour” features a great supporting cast, with E.G. Marshall, Edward Binns and Elaine Stritch in her film debut. Plus, there’s a scene with Nat King Cole singing at Crystal Ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Curtiz might have been an SOB, but he was ‘Casablanca,’” Rode said. “We always have that.”

Festival passes are $85 apiece ($75 for Music Box members). Opening-night tickets, $12 ($9 for members). Single-feature tickets, $11 ($7, members). Double-feature tickets, $15 ($12, members). For more information about Noir City: Chicago, click here 

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[steenpaal]

Nicholas Musuraca - Wikipedia

Nicholas Musuraca, A.S.C. (October 25, 1892 – September 3, 1975) was a motion-picture cinematographer who began his film career as the chauffeur for silent film producer J. Stuart Blackton. He worked behind the scenes on numerous silent and B-movie action films before becoming one of RKO Radio Pictures prime directors of photography in the 1930s.

While working regularly at RKO, he was nominated for a 1947 Academy Award for his work on I Remember Mama. After working briefly at Warner Bros. in the late 1950s, Musuraca joined Desilu, where he spent his last active years in TV work including the television series F Troop. He collaborated with director Jacques Tourneur on Cat People (1942) and Out of the Past (1947).

According to Eric Schaefer:

Nicholas Musuraca's name remains unjustly obscure among the ranks of cinematographers from Hollywood's golden age. In his prime years at RKO during the 1940s, Musuraca shuttled back and forth between A- and B-films, prestige pictures, and genre potboilers. For this reason, and because many of the motion pictures photographed by Musuraca have attained a classic or landmark status only recently, he remains a neglected master.

Along with Gregg Toland's work on Citizen Kane (1941), Musuraca's cinematography for Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) defined the visual conventions for the film noir and codified the RKO look for the 1940s. Musuraca's photography begins and ends with shadows, owing a major debt to German Expressionism, and can be seen as the leading factor in the resurrection of the style in Hollywood in the 1940s. The dominant tone in his work is black, a stylistic bias that lent itself to the film noir and the moody horror films of Val Lewton.

But even within the confines of the studio system Musuraca succeeded in transposing his style to other genres. The western Blood on the Moon (1948) and George Stevens's nostalgic family drama I Remember Mama (1948) are both infused with the same shadowy visuals that Musuraca brought to the horror film in Cat People (1942) and the film noir in The Locket (1946). Through the conventions of varying genres and the differing requirements of numerous directors, Musuraca maintained a uniform personal aesthetic".[1]

Nicola Musuraca left his home in Riace, province of Reggio di Calabria, Italy, and emigrated to the United States in 1907. He and his father, Cosimo Musuraca, boarded the Italian steamer Re d'Italia in July 1907, sailing from Naples on July 18 and arriving at the Port of New York on August 3, 1907. There, they were transferred to Ellis Island with their fellow steerage passenger where they underwent federal immigrant inspection. Upon being admitted the father and son set out for Brooklyn to join Cosimo's brother, Francesco.

Selected filmography[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

[focalwriterworks]

THE GUNMAN

Jeff Spicoli trades in his surfboard for some semi-automatic hand guns in this taut, Luc Besson style European thriller.  Starring five-time Oscar nominated actor and winner of two Academy Awards, Sean Penn.

The Story: This is familiar story and movie plot material, maybe Jack Reacher (2012) is the most recent film I can think of, but countless other films where a hero is established, in this case Sean Penn's James Terrier, who eight years after an African mercenary killer-for-hire event is now being sought by an undisclosed enemy in what Terrier believes is retaliation, or revenge, for the actions he carried out on the job.  People are out to get him, regardless, and he doesn't know who or why but uses all of his paramilitary resources and killer instincts to find out who and stop them before he, and a girl he once loved, Annie, played by Jasmine Trinca, are dead.    

The Goods: About an hour in there's a highly characteristic move by what appears to make Terrier a smart man (until then I’m not sure just how smart, or stupid, he is, there’s just a lot of shooting, hiding and running).  He discovers a rigged bomb in his hotel room, with trip wires waiting for him, which he’s able to quickly disable it, slip out into the open so they see him, re-enter his room to allow them to see the device not working and upon which he re-connects the bomb and uses against these guys as they try to muscle their way into his place.  It's a well worked-out scene that plays quickly but is long enough to sink your teeth into, to watch and follow and enjoy as the scene takes its course.  It's quite possibly the only redeeming thing about this film, and though it’s like one or two nifty scenes in Taken (2008), it's sort of an anomaly in movie-making these days.    

Directer Pierre Morel was the cinematographer on a slew of Luc Besson films like The Transporter (2002) and Unleashed (2005), and camera operator on Taken and From Paris With Love (2010) which is why The Gunman feels familiar both in theme, character and action.  Not a bad thing necessarily, but can this genre ever be too much?  A change of location helps certainly as the action takes us to Barcelona, London, Africa and Gibraltar.  

The Flaws: It's so similar to Neeson and Cruise films that it makes me think Penn did it just to be a) more relevant or b) because he needs the work.  Not because he needs an Oscar.  Which is slightly disappointing.  I think the key to identifying with heroes is that we sort of want to be like them.  Who wouldn't want to be Tony Stark, or Neeson's Bryan Mills, or Cruise's Maverick, or better yet any number of 007's.  Unfortunately there's nothing here in Penn's character that makes me identify with him.   While he can fight better than a lot of the dudes I mentioned, still, he lacks a certain manliness—maybe it's just stature—that says, hey, I'm a super-hero kind of guy you should be rooting for.  And I think that's where a good speech comes into play.  If you can't win me with the action, then tell me something stirring that I can walk away with.  

We don't really get to know Terrier. Outside of running with a gun, shooting, using hand-to-hand combat. Maybe this is truly who he is. Annie loves him, but I can’t think hand-to-hand combat is why she loves him… she doesn't seem the type.  She's a humanitarian worker.  Helping poverty-stricken citizens of a small Republic of Congo town. Javier Bardem has a small part in the film, who also loves Annie.  At times after about thirty minutes in The Gunman has a whiff of Against All Odds (1984), which if you see that '80's Jeff Bridges movie now it's awful (that movie in turn a remake of the classic noir film Out of the Past (1947)).  The triangle of two men, and a woman they both love, it doesn’t work.  But that odor soon passes and we get back into some gunplay.  A chase, a hunt, some suspense.  A hero stung with an ailment from his days as a hired hit man in a Tommy Bahama shirt that prevents him from being completely healthy…you can’t help but think of D.O.A (1988), Crank (2006), or any number of films where the hero will doesn’t die from the hands of bad guys will do so from some crazy trauma or ticking drug bomb.  

Bardem’s character, Felix, a part of Terrier’s team back in the day, peaks with some kind of babbling incoherent speech that seems to be a cheap way out of this small part in the script, for Bardem.  If you've ever heard or used the phrase in reference to actors, "he called it in," yeah, well that's the first and only impression I get from Bardem, and he did so from a 1990’s Motorola flip-phone.  But I'll blame it on the script. Penn is an Oscar-winning actor whose nominations and wins are pretty much banked on strong monologues. We don't get any of that in this film, which is fine, but there might be some subconscious expectation of that.  To see him running around with a gun, and knives, in doing what Tom Cruise does in Mission impossible films, doesn't give him much of an opportunity to deliver some choice words.   In terms of balance, a term that Felix uses in a scene where he is flexing his refined, domesticated side in the business world, balance is what this film needs in terms of something more verbal to counter all this action.   I imagine that's why many action films are just what they are, fun, mindless escape.    

And it's why Die Hard (1988) still sets the standard in action films.  The conversation between John McClane and Sgt. Al Powell, in that nice first break in the gun fighting action, in the first film, is the best example of slowing things down and getting to know the characters; letting the audience catch their breath.  

The Call: Stow the dough.  While the fist-fighting, knife play and gun-fire chases are thrilling it’s not something you’ll miss if you just wait a while for the rental.  What makes one hero like John McClane, James Bond, Ethan Hunt, Han Solo or Peter Parker any different from James Terrier?  It’s the fact you want to be these guys.  Part of why we watch.  We live vicariously.  In The Gunman we don’t do that.  Instead we just watch.  And feel nothing.  When Idris Elba appears very late in the film, for what amounts to be maybe ten minutes of screen time, he outshines and overshadows every single hard working thing Penn has done in this film—nearly two hours of it—by just standing there and saying a handful of choice words.  And that’s the stuff, say, a James Bond like hero, is made of.   Rumors are that Elba will be the next Bond.  I look forward to that day.  And that’s what The Gunman amounts to folks. A psalm for ten minutes of Idris Elba.    

Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality.  Running time is 1 hour and 55 minutes.    

By Jon Lamoreaux

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Quietly Radical Paintings of George Schneeman

George Schneeman, “Cigarette/Girl (Feb. 26 2006), egg tempera on panel, 10 x 11 1/2 inches (all images courtesy of the Estate of George Schneeman and Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York, unless otherwise noted)

I happily own a large lithograph that George Schneeman and Ted Berrigan collaborated on. This prized possession hangs above the front door of my apartment, and I pass under it whenever I go out. In the lithograph, Berrigan cites Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems and Charles Reznikoff’s first novel By the Waters of Manhattan, while Schneeman has drawn a ship and bowling pins. Here are some of the ten things that Berrigan says he does every day: “play poker, drink beer, smoke pot, jack off and curse.” Schneeman and Berrigan’s print is a celebration of a world in which art and daily life are inseparable, which is one of the reasons I moved to New York in the mid-70s.

In 2014, I reviewed the retrospective exhibition A Painter and His Poets: The Art of George Schneeman, which was thoughtfully curated by Bill Berkson and Ron Padgett at Poets House. That exhibition included the amazing painting “Untitled (Nude Group)” (1969), in which 13 people, many of them poets, sat nude in George and Katie Schneeman’s sun-filled apartment at 29 St. Mark’s Place, while blood was being shed all around them, in race riots, assassinations, and the Vietnam War.

George Schneeman, “Untitled (Stocking Vase)” (1980), ceramic, 8 x 5 x 5 inches

The current exhibition, George Schneeman: Going Ape at Pavel Zoubok, which closes today, offers another side of this self-effacing, under-appreciated artist: ceramics and small egg temperas on panels in which he made copies of his collages.

Schneeman, who started painting while he was in the army and stationed in Italy, was self-taught. After getting out of the service, he and his wife Katie stayed in Italy until 1966, when they moved to New York so that their children could grow up in America. They settled in the East Village because Padgett and Peter Schjeldahl, whom Schneeman had befriended in Italy, convinced him that this was where he wanted to be. The rest is history.

By all accounts Schneeman did hundreds and hundreds of collaborations with poets, including Padgett, Berkson, Berrigan, and Schjeldahl, as well as Larry Fagin, Dick Gallup, Alice Notley, Allen Ginsberg, and Anne Waldman, many of whom were part of the second wave of the New York School of Poets. It is not surprising that Schneeman never became a commercial success. Collaborations with poets are hardly what collectors pine for. According to the poet and critic Carter Ratcliff: “Never very intent on a career as a gallery artist, Schneeman chose instead to be a friend of the poets.” But in a real and deep sense, Schneeman was an integral part of a historical moment that took place on the Lower East Side between the 1960s and ‘80s, before gentrification. He contributed designs for flyers, posters, and calendars to the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, where generations of poets have done readings. Even if you did not know him, his presence was felt in the thriving literary scene that centered in the Poetry Project.

George Schneeman with Bill Berkson, “Untitled (Ten Ways to Watch It)” (ca.1970), mixed-media on illustration board, 10 x 13 inches (courtesy of the Estate of George Schneeman and Bill Berkson and Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York)

There is a lot in this small exhibition to recommend. The collages Schneeman did with Berkson are diaristic accounts of whatever they were watching on television (baseball or perhaps a movie) or talking about: the title of the great noir film Out of the Past (1947), starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer, directed by Jacques Tourneur, is written on one collage. The film actress Ann Dvorak, who retired in 1951, is another name that is likely unknown to many, but it has also found its way onto another work. There is a richness of pop culture associations mingled with crude phrases in the mixed media work “Ten ways to watch it” which also includes a seated male nude and the memorable phrase, “Have a heart like a steel banana.” The writing and images (drawn, painted, collaged) are slight and yet powerful: they have a gritty urban feel to them.

The selection of ceramics, which Schneeman taught himself to slip cast, includes three in brown and black dating from 1980-81. These are incised with portraits, two of which are identified as “Rene (Ricard)” and “Susan Rothenberg,” while the third is untitled. On another ceramic, “Untitled (Stocking Vase)” (1980), which is primarily white with an orange stripe at the top and near the bottom, the artist has depicted a pair of stockings draped over a coat hanger — a meeting of domesticity and the erotic.

George Schneeman, “Untitled (The Locket)” (1967), acrylic and collage on canvas, 37 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches

There is a portrait in acrylic and collage called “Untitled (The Locket)” (1967), in which Schneeman depicted his wife Katie the year after they moved to New York and were living in a small apartment on East 7th Street near Tompkins Square Park. According to Katie, he bought the locket in a junk shop across the street for her as a Christmas present. It cost 35 cents. Thinly painted in muted ocher and surrounded by white, reflecting Schneeman’s love of fresco, making the locket the composition’s focus. In the upper left corner Schneeman has affixed a framed holiday greeting from the Casablanca Bar in year 1946, which includes a real thermometer. This too likely came from the junk shop and probably cost less than 35 cents. This is Schneeman’s aesthetic: use whatever is lying around the house. In a country devoted to materialism, Schneeman’s gesture strikes me as radical and rebellious without announcing that fact.

George Schneeman, “Hunting/A Weight” (Mar 1, 2001), egg tempera on panel, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches

Done between 2000 and 2006, the paintings after collages were done in egg tempera on panel. They constitute a distinct body of work within Schneeman’s oeuvre and should be better known. They are made up of fragments: an image of a woman’s hands gripping her insteps, her feet shod in red high heels. From the title, “Hunting/A Weight” (2001), she appears to be standing on an old-fashioned bathroom scale, while “Hunting” refers to a miniature pilgrim carrying a blunderbuss on the left. In this and other paintings, there is a clear invitation to supply a narrative. Their juxtapositions never feel arbitrary, and they cannot be quickly unpacked. This where they get their staying power, and yet there is something mysterious and even sweet about them. Perhaps a show solely devoted to these works, which are like no one else’s, is what should happen next.

George Schneeman: Going Ape closes at Pavel Zoubok (531 West 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) today.

The post The Quietly Radical Paintings of George Schneeman appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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