The Big Combo, 1955, Jean Wallace and Cornel Wilde trapped in a nightmarish landscape, cinematography by the great John Alton.
Every morning I rise at about five AM, don my sweats, hook up my iPhone’s music function and take a brisk three-mile walk.
The streets of Los Angeles at this time of the morning are wet, slick from all the lawn sprinklers that explode with a fearsome hiss in the middle of the night. There is very little traffic: mostly construction trucks heading to work sites, and wheezing vans driving on the wrong side of the street delivering newspapers with a metronomic thunk, thunk, thunk.
Quite often there’s a low hanging fog; lights from lamp posts and porches are heavily diffused.
Film Noir, a genre that flourished in the late 40′s and early fifties posited a Los Angeles that is dark and dangerous; a place where crime and double crosses are the norm. In masterpieces such as Double Indemnity, (1944), Gun Crazy (1950) The Big Combo (1955), and The Killing (1956 ), annihilation of the body and soul is predestined.
This morning, as B.B. King informed me that “The Thrill is Gone,” I reached Castle Heights and stopped in my tracks. There, near a street lamp, a man and woman were locked in a passionate embrace. I could only see their silhouettes.
Dames, guns and oppressive, seedy hotel rooms were staples of Film Noir. Here, John Dahl and Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy, 1950.
Droplets of fog caused the light to shimmer eerily.
I stood there, riven by the sight. Somehow, it seemed wrong to interrupt by walking past.
The couple stayed like this for a few seconds, then the man climbed into a Jaguar, started up the engine and slid away. The woman watched her lover drive north, then she folded her trim frame into a gleaming black Lexus, made a U turn—the tires made a soft whoosh—and headed south.
Goodness gracious, I said to myself as a dozen possible characters and plots ripped through my feverish, screenwriter’s imagination.
Movie critics tell us that Film Noir was born out of the ashes of World War II, from the anxiety of America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union, the fear of nuclear destruction. But I believe that this haunting and influential genre was just as much the result of Hollywood screenwriters, directors and cinematographers who, unable to sleep, walked the haunting streets of Los Angeles at five in the morning.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
30 Comments
What are some of the other songs you have on your ipod, Robert? My favourite take of ‘Thrill Is Gone’ is on ‘BB King Live at Cook County Jail’, 1971. I love the way Sonny Freeman, drummer, pushes the beat ahead with each chorus. Smooth, subtle, beautifully musical.
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Earl:
Here are a few songs from my playlist:
Gloria, Patti Smith
Four in the Morning, The Youngbloods
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, The Band
Lola, The Raincoats
All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix
For Your Love, The Yardbirds
Time Has Come Today, The Chambers Brothers
My Back Pages, The Byrds
Shoot Out the Lights, Richard and Linda Thompson
Down So Low, Tracy Nelson
Lots of Everly Bros, Beach Boys and Elvis.
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A wonderful book is Hard-Boiled: Great Lines from Classic Noir Films by Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa, where I found one of my favorite lines –
“I don’t pray. Kneeling bags my nylons.” ~ Jan Sterling as Lorraine Minosa in The Big Carnival, a.k.a. Ace in the Hole (1951)
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Maria:
The Big carnival is an amazing film, more timely then ever in addressing the moral corruption of the media. The line you quote is brilliant screenwriting. And Sterling’s hard-boiled performance is top notch.
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Robert:
Edwin L. Marn. Maisie pictures. Tall In The Saddle, Johnny Angel, Mr. Ace, Nocturne, and a few others with Raft; Canadian Pacific, Fighting Man of the Plains, Fort Worth and others, with and for Randolph Scott. Fighting Man of the Plains is of special interest. So to, Young Widow (1946) with Louis Hawyard and Jane Russell; Christmas Carol (1938) Reg Owen in a rare lead. And pretty good I might add. Mosat of these are just product, but they move, are well shot and played. And there are many more. With YOung Widow, he came late to the project, but got it done, which was an accomplishment.
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Barry:
Live and learn. Thanks for making me aware of this director. Getting the job done is the name of the game.
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I hope the guy had on a trenchcoat and wore a fedora.
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Johnny:
Me too:-)
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With that described scene you had my mind racing. Had they just killed a spouse and vowed to “stay low” until things cooled off? Or the man was heading to LAX and Rio?
I’m expecting Robert in a Fedora and cigarette dangling from his mouth as he is explaining how his city works….
As an aside my father, now 91 years old, was born in Los Angeles and describes getting up about your tine and – with his cousin – riding their bicycles down the middle of Hollywood Blvd…..
Me, I am getting up at the same time as you - notice you don’t get to your blog until later
But instead of such rich mental imagery on your walks I am taking the dogs for a walk in the dark - down to the dog park – with a flashlight so I don’t step in the…..
Never mind!
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Bill:
I pass a few dog walkers. In truth, the somnolent humans—often in pajamas and Uggs—look like they are being walked by their lively dogs. Too often a dog lunges and sniffs my, um, crotch. The dog walkers assure me that their dog is okay, friendly, nothing to worry about. But I have to tell you, I really don’t like having my crotch nuzzled and drolled over like that. I think too many homo saphiens have lost sight of the fact that their pets are animals.
Rant over.
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Robert – a lot of dog walkers are nuts. Have spent no time socializing the dog or teaching it basic manners. I am “babysitting” a border collie that when we first started on the leach - darted like a dog on amphetamines.
Choke Chains are there to be used.
My dog – I tell people – is better behaved than half the public and after they meet him – agree.
For an other to let a dog do that to people is more telling about the owner than the dog.
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Bill:
Yes, the dogs that slobber over me are invariably owned by, er, marginal characters. I am thankful to the dog owners who keep their dogs on a leash, and step a few yards out of the way in order to keep their frisky dogs from me.
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That’s funny – the dogs on my street always smell my hands and face! But maybe that’s because I’m always handling little Tamar and her food/bottles/messes.
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Alter:
Baby smells are intoxicating to humans. I imagine that for dogs, whose sense of smell is so acute, the odor is irresitible.
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Robert–Money and lust, desire and compulsion., all cut from the same cloth. And I do believe Gun Crazy is well done. In fact, I prefer it to Bonnie and Clyde, not for any reason other than I am not on side with either Beatty or Penn. Particularly Penn. Too much an old hippie for my taste. I am reacting to the celebration of modest achievement. Prefer Ed Marin to Lewis. Clarence Brown to any of them,, not for a real or imagined directorial signature, but just the number of projects successfully handled over an extended period of time. Add Hathaway to that. And, of course, I don’t accept the auteur business. Nothat Adnrew Sarris isn’t fun, but not holy writ either.
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Barry:
I consider Clarence Brown one of the most important directors in movie history.
Who is Ed Marin?
Many years ago I had dinner with Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell. It was not a pretty encounter. Their pretentious monologues cured me of my admiration for film critics very quickly.
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Robert, to me, reading your blog is like savoring a box of chocolates slowly. I enjoy each small bite that you post. Claudia
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Claudia:
Thanks so much for the kind words. Chocolate is man’s best friend:-)
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What – no photo?
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Alter:
If I took a photo with my iPhone, the couple would notice—the flash!—and then they’d try to kill me because I’m witness to sleazy adulterers who have just murdered an innocent spouse.
See: “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “Double Indemnity.”
Just one example of how my so-called mind functions.
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We have to get you one of those ballpoint pen spy cameras.
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More–
While I am not a fan of The Big Combo, or its director, Jean Wallace makes a contribution that is smoking hot. There is a single scene with Conte that is not only unusual for its period, but erotic for any time.
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Barry:
I know exactly the scene of which you are writing. Truly amazing sequence by screenwriter Philip Yordan.
Now tell me: don’t you admire Lewis’ one-take bank robbery sequence in “Gun Crazy.”
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Otto Penzler wrote a brilliant article for the Huffington Post positing that noir is about losers. James Cain initiated all of this, along with other great pulp writers, sung and unsung, prior to WWII. Sociology doesn’t cut it, an exercise for fools. These lives are about desire and compulsion. Fullfilled or not.
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Barry:
Penzler knows his noir. I’ll look up the article. Thanks.
And I agree, sociological explanations for movie genres and their meanings are prime examples of the swamp of academia that has overwhelmed post-modern film departments.
As Brian De Palma told me when we were writing Body Double: “There are only two effective motivations in the movies: money and lust.”
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In Los Angeles, even the seedy characters in a dark, foggy rendezvous drive nice cars. *sigh*
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Prophet Joe:
Nice cars that were new and shiny! Welcome to the city of dreams.
When we moved to LA Karen would often observe: ”The whole city looks like a movie set.”
And I would add: “In contrast to Brooklyn which look like Italian Neo-Realism.”
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I remembered a funny quote from – well, I can’t remember. But regarding Mercedes it was said that in Beverly Hills the maids drive Mercedes….
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Bill:
Late in my walk, when I’m close to home, I pass a few Hispanic maids walking from their bus stops to various homes in my neighborhood. I always greet them with a buenos dias and they all sing back something much longer in Spanish—which I do not understand. I just nod and smile like an idiot.
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Now that you have me thinking “scripts” this could be a Steve Martin movie where the maids are actually saying “What is this crazy gringo doing up at this hour when he doesn’t have to be up?
And Steve is smiling away!
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