Hold Back Tomorrow (1955)

Hold Back Tomorrow was produced, directed and written in 1955 by Hugo Haas, a filmmaker who is arguably unfairly overlooked. It’s one of several Haas movies which starred Cleo Moore.

It’s a movie that had to tread fairly carefully to avoid the ire of the Production Code Authority.

A killer named Joe Cardos (John Agar) is to be hanged the following morning. The warden tells him he can have a last request. No matter what it is it will be granted. Joe asks for a woman for the night.

The warden is horrified but feels that he has no choice. The cops are given the job of finding Joe a woman.

That proves to be rather difficult. Most girls are not keen on the idea of spending the night with a guy who is about to be hanged for strangling three women. Even ladies known to have flexible moral standards are not interested.

Finally they get a lead on a girl who might be a possibility. The proprietress of an escort service suggests that Dora (Cleo Moore). Dora is down so low and is so desperate she would do anything for money, and since there will be two hundred bucks in it for her she might say yes.

We have already been introduced to Dora, in the movie’s effectively moody doom-laden opening sequence. She was trying to drown herself. She really is at rock bottom. Not surprisingly she says yes. She hates the idea but she hates life and she hates herself and she hates everything and she figures she’s got nothing left to lose.

Dora and Joe don’t exactly hit it off at first. Eventually they begin to talk. About their pasts. About why their lives have been so disastrous. I can’t say too much more without risking spoilers.

Almost the entire movie is shot on a single set, Joe’s cell. By its nature it’s a very talky movie. It also inevitably has a slightly artificial feel but that works to the film’s advantage - it’s as if for one night these two people are locked in their own private world.

And it is totally focused on Joe and Dora. That puts a lot of pressure on the lead actors. They carry it off pretty well. John Agar plays Joe as a man filled with seething resentment and he does a decent job.

Cleo Moore never quite made it to the top as an actress. She didn’t quite have that extra something that transforms a promising actress into a genuine A-list star. I’ve seen a few of her movies and she was always quite competent. This is by far the best performance I’ve seen from her. She’s very very impressive and never makes the mistake of pushing things too far. Dora is not a woman likely to have an emotional meltdown or burst into tears. For her it’s much too late for that. Moore captures her mix of resignation and despair exceptionally well.

Now back to my earlier point about this movie’s fascinating attempts to sidestep the Production Code. First off, what would a guy in Joe’s position want to do with a dame on his last night on earth? Maybe he’d like to play gin rummy, or talk about literature, but even in 1955 no audience was going to buy that. But of course there was no way the movie could suggest that he might want to have sex with her. Perish the thought. Joe just wants a woman to talk to. It kind of works but it is obviously a bit unlikely, especially given that Dora is a stunning blonde and is wearing a slinky dress.

When the cops talk to the woman who runs the escort service Haas is careful to make sure we see a prominently displayed sign which explains that the agency provides girls as dancing partners only, but at the same time we get the very strong impression that these young ladies are call girls.

Of course when the cops had trouble finding a girl to agree to share Joe’s cell on his last night the obvious thing would have been to look for a prostitute. Even if it was going to be made clear that no hanky-panky was going to happen it would be fairly obvious that a prostitute would be more likely go for such an idea than a respectable girl.

And at this point it would seem that Haas decided to take a risk. He threw in a line that tells us that Dora is in fact a call girl. It’s just one line and presumably he hoped that somehow the Production Code Authority (PCA) would miss it. And apparently they did. So Dora is indeed a prostitute, and we also learn (in that same single line of dialogue), that like most such girls she’s been persecuted by the criminal justice system and that might well explain why she’s been reduced to poverty and despair. All of which means that her character makes more sense, and her actions make more sense.

Haas was clearly trying to make a grown-up movie and to a surprising extent he succeeds. He knew that the really grown-up stuff would have to be limited to one or two crucial lines of dialogue that the PCA might not notice. My interpretation of this movie is to a large extent based on these throwaway lines, but given that Haas had by this time been writing and directing movies for 30 years I figure that if he included a line of dialogue he did so for a reason. There’s that one line that suggests that Dora is probably a call girl. There’s another line that indicates that Dora assumes that Joe’s murders were sexually motivated, that he strangled women because that was the only way he could get sexual pleasure.

What’s really interesting is that Dora simply doesn’t care if Joe kills her for his sexual pleasure. To her that would be a fitting end to her life.

The prison authorities leave Dora completely alone in the cell with Joe. There’s not even a guard posted outside. He could do anything he wanted to her. That’s obviously a bit of dramatic licence, no prison warden would allow such a thing, but it’s dramatically necessary. We have to believe that Dora’s life is in Joe’s hands.

This is a story of a man in need of redemption, but he doesn’t know it. And a woman in need of a meaning to her life, but she doesn’t know it. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out whether either achieves those goals.

This is a slightly odd movie but it’s engrossing. Highly recommended.

It’s included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII boxed set although of course it isn’t film noir.

I’ve reviewed a couple of Cleo Moore’s other movies - One Girl’s Confession (1953) and Over-Exposed (1956).

Anna Boleyn (1920)

I’ve been watching lots of early Ernst Lubitsch silent movies. At this stage of his career the man was a crazed visionary genius. You just never knew what he’d come up with next but you know it would be weird and exciting. Which may be why I was disappointed by Anna Boleyn (1920). I wasn’t prepared for a very conventional historical melodrama.

It starts of course with Henry VIII (Emil Jannings) becoming obsessed with his queen’s new lady-in-waiting Anne Boleyn (Henny Porten). The king is also concerned that his queen, Catherine of Aragon, has only given him a daughter and is clearly not going to have any more children. Henry feels that he absolutely must have a male heir. From the point of view of the future stability of his kingdom he is quite justified in fearing that a female heir might not be strong enough to hold on to her crown. So Henry is motivated both by lust and by reasons of state and the movie succeeds in making that clear.

English church leaders are willing to grant Henry an annulment but this is blocked by the Pope, which leads Henry to declare himself head of the Church of England. Now he can free himself of Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne. The movie takes no interest in the details of these church and political dramas - the focus is on the human dramas.

Anne already has a young man with whom she is in love. That will lead to problems. Anne produces an heir but it’s a girl. Queen Anne is accused of adultery and we all know what happened to her next.

Of course such a familiar story can only be made interesting if we get a sense of the personal motivations of these people. This movie does make some attempt to do this, and to be a character-driven historical film.

Jane Seymour is definitely cast as the villainess in this movie. She’s a ruthless schemer. She is motivated by pure ambition and has no scruples.

We never really get a totally clear sense of the King’s motivations. Obviously he’s motivated partly by reasons of state. And partly by lust. As to whether he feels any genuine love for Anne, we have to be pretty sceptical. It’s not easy to make Henry VIII a sympathetic character and this movie makes no real attempt to do so.

Anne Boleyn is of course the primary focus and she has at least some complexity. She comes across as a woman swept along by events. She knows she should resist the King’s advances (she’s in love with another man) but lacks the strength of character to do so. While the movie suggests that she is not actually unfaithful to the King she is somewhat indiscreet, and a queen cannot afford to be indiscreet. A queen must be above suspicion. She really has no idea how vulnerable a queen is to malicious accusations, or how dangerous her position could become.

Of course no-one could really have predicted Anne’s fate. Henry was now head of the Church of England. He could have divorced her for adultery. In reality Anne was under suspicion of treason, which would certainly have given the King grounds to have her executed (assuming there was any validity to the charge). The movie makes no mention of this, which is interesting. This may have been deliberate. The movie seems to intend to portray Henry as a man so corrupted by power that he will have a woman executed purely out of personal spite.

It’s also clear that the movie is intent on portraying Anne as a tragic victim (which she may or may not have been in reality). Whether the Anne Boleyn of the movie actually loves the King remains uncertain, perhaps because her feelings really are conflicted. Initially she is both horrified and flattered (mostly horrified) by his attentions but she is quite attracted by the idea of becoming queen.

I’m not much of an Emil Jannings fan but he’s perfectly cast here. One major problem is Henny Porten’s lifeless performance as Anne. No matter how hard the movie tries to make her the sympathetic heroine it’s hard to care about such a dull character. She is totally overshadowed by Aud Egede-Nissen as Jane Seymour - Jane is a bad bad girl but she’s lively and much more fun to watch.

It’s by no means a bad movie and my disappointment with it is mainly due to my hopes that we would see more of the wild imagination and visual splendour of Lubitsch’s other movies of this period. Anna Boleyn doesn’t really feel to me like a Lubitsch film. There’s no trace of the famed Lubitsch Touch.

Overall I thought Anna Boleyn fell a bit flat. It’s a by-the-numbers historical tragic romance epic and it just lacks the necessary vital spark.

This is included in several Lubitsch in Berlin boxed sets (both DVD and Blu-Ray). They’re worth buying because the other early Lubitsch movies are so fabulous. If you’re buying the boxed set anyway give Anna Boleyn a look by all means but set your expectations fairly low.

I’ve reviewed some of Lubitch’s wild crazy early movies (all of which are better than this one) - The Doll (Die Puppe, 1919), The Wildcat (1921) and Sumurun (1920).

Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie

The subject matter of Tony Lee Moral’s Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie is self-explanatory. It was published in 2002 and a revised edition followed in 2013.

I’m quite a fan of Hitchcock’s much maligned and much misunderstood Marnie. It’s a movie that has its problems but it has major strengths as well, it’s extraordinarily bold thematically structurally and stylistically and it’s ambitious. It sees Hitchcock once again attempting a different approach, just as he had done with Psycho and The Birds. It was savaged by critics who displayed unbelievable obtuseness in failing to comprehend that if Hitchcock made a movie in a particular way that was because he thought that that was the way that movie needed to be made. He always did things for a reason.

I’m always happy to see this movie get some attention, especially sympathetic attention. And Moral is certainly keen to see Marnie get a positive re-evaluation and recognition as one of Hitchcock’s major films.

There’s a lot to like about this book. The author offers us an exhaustively detailed account of the genesis of the movie, the various attempts to come up with the right screenplay, Hitchcock’s attempts to persuade Grace Kelly to take the lead role and the process of actually making the film. Moral seems somewhat suspicious of auteurist theory and (rightly) emphasises the contributions of Hitchcock’s extremely talented collaborators. We really feel that we are watching the making of the movie unfold.

The level of detail is impressive and absolutely fascinating.

He also addresses the absurdity of the attacks on the movie by film critics at that time. The movie was attacked for not looking realistic. You have to wonder if those critics had ever watched a Hitchcock movie, or rather you have to ask if they had ever understood a Hitchcock movie. Hitchcock was never slavishly devoted to realism, and Moral (correctly) points out that Hitchcock’s movies are uncompromisingly subjective. We see the point of view of a particular character whose view of reality is subtly, or sometimes seriously, distorted. The use of rear projection and the controversial use of an obvious painted backdrop in a crucial scene enhance the movie’s feel of subtle unreality. Marnie’s view of the world is distorted by her fears. Moral disposes of these silly attacks by critics in fine style.

He’s also determined to defends Hitchcock from some of the ridiculous and hysterical attacks on his character by people Donald Spoto.

Moral is incredibly good on the subject of the marketing and critical and commercial reception of Marnie.

When he tries his hand at interpretation of the movie he’s on much less solid ground, often resorting to meaningless film school waffle, ideological buzz-words and psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo even sillier than that found in the movie itself. Moral would have been well advised to stick to giving us information about the production while letting us make up out own minds what the movie means.

There’s a silly chapter on the various pretentious arty types who have exploited the movie’s notoriety for their own ends.

The information on the dramatic changes the script went through at the hands of three separate writers is intriguing, and he deals well with the slightly controversial question of Hitchcock’s decision to fire Evan Hunter. The extra chapters added for the revised version give us more information than we could possibly require about the author of the original novel, Winston Graham, and the writer of the final screenplay, Jay Presson Allen. He also tells us at immense length abut Hitchcock’s abortive attempt to film J.M. Barrie’s play Mary Rose. This is reasonably interesting but it’s veering wildly off-topic.

This is not a particularly well written or well structured book. It really needed some attention from a good editor.

It’s the copious amounts of information on the journey from Hitchcock’s original idea of filming Winston Graham’s novel to the time the cameras started rolling, and on the movie’s fate after its release, that makes this book an essential read for Hitchcock fans. For those reasons, despite some flaws, it’s highly recommended.

Outside the Wall (1950)

Outside the Wall (1950) is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII. These sets are excellent and include lots of fine movies that are very much worth seeing but most of the films have at best only the most tenuous connections to actual film noir.

Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart) has just been released from prison. He served fifteen years for murder. He went into prison at the age of fourteen. Now he’s almost thirty. He’s no longer the hot-headed punk who was sentenced all those years ago. Whatever demons were driving him in his youth have long since departed. He’s now a good-natured rather pleasant young man. For years he has been a model prisoner, working in the prison infirmary.

He is also very confused and very scared. He has been totally institutionalised. He is horrified by the world outside of prison. Why are people so nasty to each other? Why is everyone in such a hurry? Why is everything so loud?

Seeking peace and quiet he finds a job in a sanatorium in a tiny Pennsylvania town. He is assured that nothing ever happens in this sleepy little village. That suits Larry just fine.

One major problem he has is women. Having been in prison since the age of fourteen he has of course zero experience with women. Not only is he obviously a virgin, he has never kissed a girl, never held hands with a girl, never danced with a girl, never dated a girl. He is terrified of women.

Unfortunately the first dame he encounters on the outside is a lady of easy virtue who tries to relieve him of his bankroll. Now he’s really suspicious of these dangerous creatures.

There are two young nurses at the sanatorium. They’re very scary. They have all these curves, which is rather disturbing. He really gets off on the wrong foot with Charlotte (Marilyn Maxwell). He totally misinterprets everything she does. He thinks she’s rude and obnoxious. In fact, having performed the pre-employment medical exam on him, she is actually rather besotted with his manly physique. Poor Larry doesn’t understand how flirting works. The other nurse is Ann Taylor (Dorothy Hart). She seems friendly but Larry doesn’t know to respond.

Now some noirness enters the story. A new patient arrives at the sanatorium. Mr Stoker is seriously ill with TB and may or may not live. Only Mr Stoker isn’t Mr Stoker, he’s Jack Bernard who has just netted a cool million dollars from an armoured car holdup. Larry recognises him. They knew each other in prison. As far as Larry is concerned it's none of his business.

The real trouble for Larry comes, naturally, from a dame. He’s decided Charlotte is kind of exciting. She makes it clear that she’s available, but only to guys with lots of money. And then Jack Bernard makes Larry a proposition. It’s not exactly legal but it doesn’t involve doing anything really bad, it sounds safe and with that kind of money Charlotte would be his.

Larry is a classic noir protagonist. He has a shady past but he’s a basically decent guy. He’s just a bit naïve, he’s very vulnerable when it comes to dames and Charlotte is the kind of dame who is not going to have any problem getting Larry to dance to her tune.

Larry doesn’t really understand how it’s happened, but he’s getting sucked into the noir nightmare world.

Richard Basehart is excellent. It would have been easy to make Larry seem like a pathetic sucker but Basehart ensures that we never lose sympathy for the guy and we never lose respect for him.

Marilyn Maxwell as Charlotte is fairly effective although Charlotte isn’t evil, just totally selfish. One of the most interesting things about this movie is that although she fulfils the plot function of the femme fatale she isn’t really a femme fatale. She is totally honest with Larry. She is totally honest about the kind of girl she is. What she wants in a man is money. The problem is that Larry just doesn’t know enough about women to realise that he should forget all about her. He should go after Ann, a sweet girl who is practically throwing herself at him.

Dorothy Hart as Ann is OK in the good girl role. There’s a fine supporting cast.

There’s very little in the way of noir visual style but all the other noir ingredients are here. Of course you can have all the right ingredients and still not end up with a genuine film noir. Outside the Wall certainly does have noirishness.

Not a masterpiece (Crane Wilbur just isn’t a very inspired director) but a reasonably enjoyable movie. Recommended.

Kino Lorber have come up with a very nice transfer for their Blu-Ray presentation.

Death In A Red Jaguar (1968)

Death In A Red Jaguar (Der Tod im roten Jaguar) was the sixth of the excellent West German Jerry Cotton crime thrillers. It came out in 1968.

These films were based on the Jerry Cotton crime novels published in Germany as pulp magazines. This pulp series began in the mid-50s and it’s still going, with over 3,400 issues to date and total sales approaching a billion.

This was the golden age of German pop cinema which was kicked into top gear by the hugely successful Edgar Wallace krimis. There were three other notable franchises - the Dr Mabuse sci-fi flavoured diabolical criminal mastermind movies, the Kommissar X eurospy series and the Jerry Cotton series (which ran to eight films). What’s fascinating is that these franchises all had their own totally unique flavours but at the same time they all emphasised style above all, and they all feel distinctively German.

One of the things I really love about the Jerry Cotton movies is very similar to what I love about the German Edgar Wallace krimis - the delightful wrongness of the settings. The Edgar Wallace movies are supposed to take place in England but this is an alternative reality England that only existed in the minds of the German filmmakers. In the same way the Jerry Cotton movies are supposedly set in the United States but this is an America of the German imagination. In both cases the films end up with a wonderful subtly unreal feel which is hugely enjoyable.

The opening sequence of Death In A Red Jaguar is peak 60s German pop cinema - a car chase, a shootout in a theatre, sexy showgirls in their underwear, hostage-taking and a daring (and acrobatic) rescue by the movie’s hero. It leads you to believe that this movie is going to be fun. And it really is lots of fun.

The FBI are brought in to assist in the investigation of a series of murders. The modus operandi is the same in each case. They’re obviously linked. In each case there was a very obvious suspect with a very very strong motive, and in each case the suspect had a convenient absolutely cast-iron alibi. The Bureau thinks they’re the work of an organisation similar to Murder Inc but the victims are not gangsters, instead they’re wives or husbands or business partners who have become inconvenient.

Ace G-Man Jerry Cotton becomes involved. He hopes to get a lead by focusing on one of those obvious suspects, a man who benefited enormously from his wife’s demise. The suspect announces that he is hiring a top private eye, Sam Parker, to conduct his own investigation. Sam and Jerry Cotton are old acquaintance so Jerry figures that he’ll be able to pump Sam for information. Sam’s glamorous girl assistant Ria Payne also gets mixed up in things when Jerry asks her to babysit a witness.

He thinks another of those suspects could provide a lead and he has a witness who may turn out to be vital.

Jerry has stirred up a hornet’s nest and he could find himself marked down for elimination by this shadowy murderous organisation. But being in danger is all in a day’s work for Jerry Cotton.

The plot is pretty good with some reasonable twists.

When you see Harald Reinl’s name credited as director you can feel pretty confident. This guy made some great Edgar Wallace krimis and a Karl May western and a Kommissar X movie. He knew how to do this kind of movie, and he knew how to mount a clever and effective action scene without needing a Hollywood budget. And he certainly understood pacing. He’s at the top of his game here.

And he makes fine use of locations, with the scenes in the abandoned warehouse being a highlight. And action scenes in railway freight yards always work.

George Nader played Jerry Cotton in all eight movies. Nader had seemed destined for stardom in Hollywood in the 50s but never quite made it. Like so many American actors in a similar position he found that there were much more inviting prospects for him in Europe. He was perfect casting. He looks like a G-Man. He plays Cotton as tough but sensitive, hardbitten but likeable and he has enough charisma to carry a film series. And his acting is quite competent enough for movies that are intended purely as popular entertainment.

The supporting cast is excellent with Gert Haucke and Frank Nossack being delightfully creepy and weird as two of the assassins.

Death In A Red Jaguar is fast-moving and action-packed, it’s shot with flair, it has enough of a sense of menace to make the suspense effective. Overall we’re not meant to take this movie over-seriously. This is pulp cinema. It just happens to be superbly executed pulp cinema. Very highly recommended.

The German Jerry Cotton DVD boxed set includes the English dubbed versions of all eight films. The 16:9 enhanced transfer is extremely good. The early entries in the series were in black-and-white but this one is in colour and widescreen.

I’ve reviewed other Jerry Cotton movies - Murderers Club of Brooklyn (1967), The Trap Snaps Shut at Midnight (1966), Tip Not Included (1966) and The Violin Case Murders (1965). They’re all good.

Undertow (1949)

Undertow (1949) is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII and it’s a real surprise - it’s just about the only movie in any of these sets that is actually slightly film noirish. Don’t get me wrong. These sets include lots of fine movies that are very much worth seeing but most have no connections whatsoever to actual film noir.

Undertow is an early directorial effort by William Castle, later to become legendary for his imaginative promotional gimmicks for his low-budget horror films.

Tony Reagan (Scott Brady) has just been demobilised from the army. He seems like a pretty nice guy. At a casino in Reno he meets a rather sweet young lady schoolteacher, Ann McKnight (Peggy Dow). Ann seems like the sort of girl who’s waiting for Mr Right to come along, and she seems to think that Tony might qualify. Tony however is not interested - he’s heading to Chicago to marry his sweetheart Sally Lee (Dorothy Hart).

There’s nothing more than harmless flirtation between Tony and Ann.

We now learn that seven years earlier Tony had left Chicago under a cloud. He had been involved in organised crime and had run foul of Big Jim Lee. This could be a problem now - Big Jim is Sally Lee’s uncle.

Tony finds himself framed for murder and he has a minor gunshot wound. He needs to hide out for a while but the cops have all his old friends under surveillance. Then he remembers the cute lady schoolteacher. She lives in Chicago. She is keen to help. She just knows that Tony could never have murdered anybody. He’s not her man but she’ll stand by him anyway.

The biggest problem with this movie is that we don’t really feel that the odds are stacked against Tony. He’s in a jam but he has people on his side and we figure he’ll be OK. The movie also reveals a bit too much information too early.

Tony does qualify to some extent as a noir protagonist. There’s some moral ambiguity to him. He’s been a bad boy in the past but he’s tried to keep out of trouble since. He’s a basically decent guy in danger of being drawn into the noir nightmare world.

There is also a femme fatale of a sort, but not enough is done with the character.

For me film noir should take place in a rather hostile world - an unforgiving world in which a guy makes one mistake or gets one bad break and he’s doomed. The world of Undertow is a bit too ordered and fair. It doesn’t feel particularly like the world of film noir.

The bad guys are all that sinister. The femme fatale does some femme fatale stuff but she’s not all that seductive and she doesn’t have the full-blown evil spider woman vibe.

There’s also not much in the way of genuine noir visual style (although there is some).

Watching it today this movie seems like it has the ingredients for a film noir but they’re not sufficiently exploited. But of course nobody in 1949 was consciously trying to make film noir. Castle was just trying to make a crime thriller.

Judged in that light he does a very competent job.

The acting is solid but none of the main players has real star presence or charisma.

A few more nasty plot twists would have been nice but there’s nothing particularly wrong with Undertow. It’s only marginally film noir and it’s no masterpiece but it’s an enjoyable enough B-movie and it’s worth a look.

Kino Lorber have provided a very pleasing transfer.

Chicago Deadline (1949)

Chicago Deadline is a 1949 Paramount release that is difficult to classify. It’s definitely not film noir. There’s a mystery, but not of the usual type. There are crimes, but they’re peripheral to the main plot. Perhaps it’s best to think of it as just a hardboiled newspaper movie.

Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) is a reporter for the Chicago Journal. He comes across a young woman, dead in her apartment. Her name was Rosita. There’s no mystery to her death. She died of tuberculosis. And this is not one of those movies in which what appears to be death by natural causes turns out to be murder. She really did die of tuberculosis.

Ed finds her address book. Being a reporter he naturally steals it before the police arrive. It’s unethical but no big deal. This is not a suspicious death.

This is at best a very minor human interest story. A pretty young woman dies alone in a seedy apartment. Ed, being a reporter, decides to track down some of the people in her address book. He discovers something that interests him as a newspaperman. All of these people suddenly get really nervous when Rosita’s name is mentioned. Maybe there might be a bit of a story here after all.

He slowly uncovers Rosita’s story through the people in her address book. We see Rosita (played by Donna Reed) in a series of flashbacks.

Rosita seemed to have lousy luck with men. Some of these men are now having lousy luck. Getting murdered certainly qualifies as lousy luck.

Some of these people have colourful backgrounds of a less than strictly legal nature. Some are important people. It seems more and more likely that there’s a real story here. Ed wants that story, but he gradually becomes obsessed with Rosita herself. How did her life fall apart? It’s a mystery that Ed wants to solve.

Alan Ladd is in good form. Ed Adams is the hero but he’s a slightly tarnished hero. He’s a reporter, which means he has never had any morals. A story is a story. He’s hardboiled and cynical and that has never bothered him but as he uncovers Rosita’s story he starts to like himself a lot less. He starts to become slightly uncomfortable with the idea of treating people’s lives as nothing more than material for stories. Rosita was a real woman. Ed wants her story told fairly.

The touch of cynicism about newspapers adds some interest.

Rosita is supposed to be an enigmatic figure. That’s the whole point of the story. Was she a bad girl, a femme fatale, a victim or an innocent? Or just a very ordinary young woman whose life got out of control? Donna Reed’s performance reflects this. It’s not a showy performance because it’s not supposed to be.

The plot is perhaps a little over-complicated, with perhaps too many characters. That of course is to some extent the point - Rosita met her destiny as a result of all kinds of involvements with all kinds of people, good and bad. Some used her. Some loved her. You do have to pay close attention though.

There’s no need to worry too much about spoilers here - the movie tells us how Rosita’s life will end right at the beginning. Of course there could be no question of a happy ending - we already know that she has died alone and unloved. The pay-off at the end is satisfactory but it is just a tiny bit bleak. No-one was saved. This is is probably the movie’s only valid claim to being borderline noir. The one moderately bright spot at the end is that Ed has perhaps become a bit more of an emotionally mature human being.

Chicago Deadline is pretty decent entertainment. Recommended.

This one is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVI Blu-Ray set (I’ve 
also reviewed Mystery of Marie Roget from that set). Chicago Deadline gets a lovely transfer.

The Single Standard (1929)

When people talk about Greta Garbo’s great movies they usually don’t mention her very late (1929) silent movie The Single Standard. Even when people focus on her silent films this one doesn’t get much attention. It was directed by John S. Robertson, from a novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns.

Arden (Greta Garbo) obviously belongs to the wealthy fashionable set. This was 1929 so this is a pre-Great Depression movie. This is still the Jazz Age, the Age of the Flapper.

Arden is rather fond of her handsome hunky chauffeur. One night she decides on a midnight drive, just her and the chauffeur. Arden is in the driver’s seat, and this is clearly a signal that Arden always likes to be in the driver’s seat in life. They find a romantic spot down by the lake. Just the two of them. They kiss. The movie doesn’t show us what happens next but I think it’s reasonable to assume that it’s what you would expect to happen between a healthy red-blooded young man and a healthy red-blooded young woman in a romantic setting in the moonlight.

Unpleasant consequences could probably have been foreseen, but this moonlight tryst has totally disastrous consequences.

There is of course a major class issue here. Women of Arden’s social class are not expected to offer their favours to servants.

Arden then meets Packy Cannon (Nils Asther). He’s a prize-fighter turned artist. He gives a demonstration of his pugilistic skills. Arden is impressed. Packy is artistic and very manly. He’s her sort of man. Romance is clearly going to blossom.

We’ve already figured out that Arden is a Modern Woman. She wants to lead a life of honesty and freedom. Which for her includes sexual freedom. We also know that she likes men, with a preference for masculine men. Arden believes that she has the right to make her own decisions where men are concerned.

Romance does indeed blossom. Arden and Packy sail off into the sunset together on Packy’s yacht. Things don’t quite work out and another situation arises which could potentially end as disastrously as Arden’s midnight cavortings with the chauffeur.

The title might tempt one to think that this movie was intended as an attack on the supposed “double standard” - the idea that women were held to a different moral standard compared to men. I am however not convinced that that makes sense in relation to this movie. In the context of this movie there really is only a single standard - scandal must be avoided. Morality doesn’t matter. Social approval is what matters.

Of course that is still true today. The things that bring social approval and social disapproval have changed, but social conformity still matters more than morality. Whatever the prevailing societal mores might be, however much they may change, conformity to those mores will still be ruthlessly enforced.

Arden’s mistake, which had nothing very much to do with her being a woman, was to assume that society will tolerate those who believe they have the right to make their own decisions. That has never been the case and never will be the case. This movie is really not dated at all.

We don’t think of silent movies as pre-code movies but of course a movie made in 1929 is indeed a pre-code movie, and The Single Standard feels very very pre-code. It is strongly implied that Arden and the chauffeur are lovers. It is made pretty explicit that Arden and Packy are lovers. It’s also made very clear that the audience is not meant to condemn any of these people for immorality. In fact the message of the movie appears to be that if love is on offer you should grab it. The complications that ensue for these people are not actually caused by sexual wickedness. In fact things would have worked out much more satisfactorily for everyone had Arden and Packy continued with their illicit love affair.

The Single Standard is more interesting than its reputation would suggest and I recommend it highly. And of course Garbo is terrific.

Sadly there’s a great deal of print damage evident in the Warner Archive DVD transfer but with silent movies we always have to be grateful that they have survived at all.

Union City (1980)

Union City, released in 1980, is a bit of a puzzle. It attracted mild interest at the time since it marked the real beginnings of Debbie Harry’s career as an actress (she had played a few minor roles prior to this). This film then sank without trace. It got a DVD release nearly twenty years ago and then disappeared once again into obscurity. There is still no sign of a Blu-Ray release. It’s rather bizarre. You would think that being a neo-noir starring Debbie Harry would make it well and truly viable as a Blu-Ray release. And it is a very good and extremely interesting movie.

I suspect the problem is that it’s also a slightly weird very quirky movie, the kind of movie that critics are always inclined to treat harshly. It’s also the kind of movie that would have presented a few challenges to the marketing guys. The usual response of studios to such movies is to simply not bother promoting them. And the usual response of critics (including today’s online reviewers) is to assume that such a movie is not worth bothering with.

It probably also didn’t help that this was the only feature film made by writer-director Marcus Reichert. The fact that it was made by a Hollywood outsider was another reason to dismiss it.

Union City was based on a 1937 Cornell Woolrich short story, The Corpse Next Door, and this is a very Woolrichian movie.

It is 1953. Lillian (Debbie Harry) and Harlan (Dennis Lipscomb) live in a seedy apartment in a generic fictional city, Union City. Their marriage is not a great success. Harlan is neurotic and dissatisfied with life and inclined to obsess over trivial things. Lillian has tried to be a good wife but she feels unloved.

Harlan’s latest obsession is the milk thief. Somebody is stealing his milk. He lays an elaborate trap for the thief, with disastrous consequences. As a result his fragile grip on reality becomes ever more tenuous.

Lillian seems to be drifting into an affair with the building’s super, Larry (Everett McGill). Lillian is not really that kind of girl but she’s starved of affection and Larry is much nicer to her than her husband.

Also living in the building is The Contessa (Irina Maleeva). She’s not really a contessa. She’s crazy, but likeable and harmless. She does however add to the movie’s atmosphere of weirdness.

Harlan is in a total panic because of the corpse. He has no coherent plan to dispose of it. His solution is for them to move to another apartment, which would simply make the corpse’s discovery a certainty. He is descending into a world of madness and paranoia.

As I said, this is all very Woolrichian.

I admire Debbie Harry for taking this role because, considering that she was seen at the time as perhaps the sexiest most glamorous woman in the world, it’s a very unglamorous part.

It also requires a very low-key performance. Harlan is the one who is cracking up in spectacular style and Dennis Lipscomb is the one who is called on to deliver a totally over-the-top performance (which he does very effectively).

Debbie Harry has to counter-balance that. Lillian is just a very ordinary woman. She just wanted a happy marriage. She doesn’t daydream about being a movie star or a fashion model or living in a penthouse. She just wants a bit of romance and affection, and it would be nice to have a husband who actually wanted to make love to her occasionally. She doesn’t want very much out of life, but she knows that she needs more than she’s getting.

Debbie Harry’s performance is believable and touching.

Look out for Pat Benatar in a small role. Yes, you get two pop queens in this movie.

Union City certainly has very strong neo-noir credentials but it has a feel that is quite different from other neo-noirs. It has its own totally distinctive style, possibly another reason for its neglect. It doesn’t look or feel anything like other neo-noirs with period setting (such as Chinatown, The Postman Always Rings Twice or Farewell, My Lovely) or other neo-noirs such as Body Heat or Basic Instinct.

Union City has an incredibly claustrophobic feel. It also has a very non-realist look. The use of colour to create mood is extremely interesting. There is no reason in plot terms for this movie not to have been set in 1980 - I suspect the period setting was chosen to achieve a further distancing from reality, from the everyday world. This is a movie that takes place entirely within a nightmare world. This is very obviously true in Harlan’s case but both Lillian and the Contessa can also be seen as inhabiting a world of unreality. Theirs is not a world of paranoia, but but it’s still a world of unreality. For these two women it’s a world of frustrated hopes and thwarted love.

The Tartan Video DVD is long out of print but affordable copies can still be found. I found my copy without any great difficulty. The anamorphic transfer is OK. The only extras are Debbie Harry’s screen tests and it’s easy to see why Reichert wanted her - she nailed the part perfectly right from the start.

Union City is a very unconventional neo-noir but it is still very much a neo-noir. It’s a slightly arty very moody film that makes no concessions to the conventions of cinematic realism. It’s a strange brilliant little movie and it’s very highly recommended.