Noirvember 2024 - a seedy dive to hang out and drink rot gut gin...

@Captain Quint
I seen The Long Haul for last Noirvember. I liked it pretty well and rated it same as you. I've been interested in Diana Dors ever since I started watching the old Family Feud game show with host Richard Dawson. I read about Dawson at Wiki and learned he had been married to Diana Dors. I've added Yield to the Night to my watch list, it sounds good. Dors was also in the noir The Unholy Wife with Rod Steiger and Marie Windsor. It's a fair noir but the video quality was horrible.

My review of The Long Haul from last year.

Another good British noir about truck drivers is Hell Drivers (1957)

The Big Combo (1955): What a picture! I thought this looked fantastic, so much dramatic use of light, shadow, and fog, it's just full of great shots. Big swinging jazz soundtrack, a real top-notch villain. And also one Lee Van Cleef, who is always welcome in a movie. Top-shelf noir in my opinion.

Now this was good! William Campbell played a young locksmith who gets caught up with a local mobster (Berry Kroeger) and is coerced through a chain of events to make keys to open a safe deposit box inside a bank. The on location shooting is great with shots of the city and the streets. The bank's safe deposit room was really cool, so was the bowling alley both which I'm sure were real. Campbell did a great job so did bad guy Berry Kroeger. The film sports Anita Ekberg in an early appearance and Karen Sharpe plays the love interest that gets William Campbell's character in over his head.
[rating[3.5[/rating]++

Funny, this came out the same year Dragnet premiered on radio, I kept thinking of that show because of Howard Duff's narration and stiff delivery in this one - in which he plays a federal officer who drags Dan Duryea's Johnny out of prison, to enlist his help in bringing down a crime syndicate.

Rather dullish at the start, perks up considerably when Duryea makes the scene, dries up again when he's out of the picture. Tony Curtis has a small role; Shelley Winters is annoying, brings nothing of interest to the picture, and seems to be phoning it in. William Castle directs

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Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)

Tarkovsky did a short film adaptation of The Killers. It sounds closer to what you're asking for here.

I've been doing some film-noir blindspot watching via the essential Noirvember collection on the criterion channel. It's highlighted a couple of performances from Ida Lupino for me, but the odd stand out in my mind so far has been Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. I don't know if it fully filled my desire of where it seemed like it was going, but it had some memorable moments and had a class/political dynamic that made it stand out more than the usual film-noir. I did order a copy Kiss Me Deadly, because in the film noir countdown @crumbsroom mentioned it when I said I was looking for a flim-noir that was as bleak or nihilistic as In a Lonely Place, but that just arrived and haven't had a chance to rewatch it.

Oh cool. That is good to know.

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I destroyed the dastardly dairy dame! I made mad milk maid mulch!

You could have a perfect double header of existential despair if you followed Kiss Me Deadly by finally watching Saturday Night Fever.


Not even disco dancing can save us.

I was planning to do a rewatch double feature of In a Lonely Place and Mulholland Dr. The jitterbug competition at the beginning of MD might be a good parallel for SNF, so this could happen as two nights of double features for my weekend.

As I write it, it's not even obvious how they should be paired off, because it sounds like they all go with each other.

As long as you are left with a lingering sense that there is no hope, it will be a night well spent.

Lots of film noir are bleak, utterly without hope. A rather dark and hopeless noir is Detour, love that film.

Detour's good. I'm pretty sure it made my ballot (and will probably also rewatch if there's time), but wrt In a Lonely Place, the broken state comes from inherently within the protagonist and to a different degree. Tough to articulate at the moment. Maybe In a Lonely Place is just exaggerated in my memory comparatively, but there's a degree there that struck a deeper nerve, at least for me.


Today is going to be On Dangerous Ground though (speaking of both Nicholas Ray and Ida Lupini).

You're right, In a Lonely Place earns it's dark threads through a deep character study of Bogart's character. Detour is indeed different in it's nihilism is put directly in our face and comes from random circumstances. Which is also though provoking but in a complete different way than In A Lonely Place.


That was in an HoF last year people seemed to enjoy it, I did.

Boomerang! 1947

Just seen this early directorial effort from Elia Kazan and was particularly impressed with the overall quality of the film. A murder investigation based on factual events where the local political figures pressure the investigators to resolve their case as expeditiously as possible, and for a convenient verdict to suit each of their own individual needs. Done in a realistic documentary-esque style with a solid cast headed by Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb and Arthur Kennedy, and a stellar supporting cast including Jane Wyatt, Sam Levene, Ed Begley and Karl Malden. Good one.

I forgot to post this earlier. Did anyone notice some similarities between how Harry handled Gregorious in Night and the City, and how Toro was managed in Harder They Fall? Both were deceived into believing their foray into combat sports would be lucrative for them, and it blew up in their faces. I know the end result wasn't exactly the same, although I do believe everyone involved was ruined all the same. Anyone else feel the same?

I seen both films and I did think of Harder They Fall when I was watching Night and the City. You're right both athletes were controlled, used and taken advantage. Which movie did you like better.

There's one I've seen but so many years ago I can't remember it but your review and rating makes me think I need to watch this again while I'm on noir kick.

I preferred Harder They Fall. There was more focus throughout the film. I did like the ending of Night and the City. The rest of the movie, however, I felt fell a mite flat. It's not bad necessarily. I just didn't love it.

One thing with Night and the City was I felt they gave us too much information beforehand, like how Harry gets the money and the license. I think not knowing until a stunning reveal would have been better. I think I expect too much vis twists with film noir because I frequently believe the poor one needed a twist to be better. Hm...

Harder They Fall didn't need a twist. It had suspense regardless. A twist being necessary isn't universal, really. I just feel they can be beneficial. Is it a Twilight Zone expectancy? vis I got used to twists from that that I expect them so often now. It's hard to say.