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Ten More Noirs for Noirvember

Posted by Johnny C on November 23, 2013
Posted in: Film Community, Movies. Tagged: , , , , , , . 3 Comments

noirvember

The definition of film noir for me is both stylistic and formulaic. Stylistically, the film should have a fluid movement to the filmmaking, cinematography, fashion. Story-wise, the thing that sets a noir apart from a regular mystery is the everyman who is put into an unusual situation. From the small boy in The Window who accidentally sees a murder, to the hapless hitchhiker in a film like Detour–suddenly an ordinary life is swept up into extraordinary circumstances by one moment, a moment that could be something like picking the wrong lover to something as mundane as having a flat tire.

My noir recommendation list is vast, but here are ten of my top picks:

Scarlet Street (1945) Like Detour, this is Noir 101. It’s a must-see film. And probably my favorite film of the genre. Edward G. Robinson plays a hen-pecked husband who picks the wrong woman to try to save one rainy night. Joan Bennett plays the woman who, with her grifter boyfriend (played by Dan Dureya), thinks that Robinson is a famous painter. From there, noir hilarity ensues. Lots of twists and turns and one of the darkest endings of any American film.

The Lineup (1958) I just recently saw a screening of this, and I was blown away by the violence of the film. The film follows the ruthless killer played brilliantly by Eli Wallach who is trying to track down heroin smuggled in an unsuspecting traveler’s suitcase. Some incredible location shots of San Francisco in the late ’50s. This is one of those movies they would call edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Fury (1936) Spencer Tracy plays a man traveling across country who stops in a small town and is mistaken for a killer. Based on a true story of vigilantism, the town takes the matter of justice in their own hands and burns down the jail where he is being held. Tracy’s character turns from an average Joe to a man of hard, bitter hatred. Sylvia Sidney plays his girlfriend who tries to show him that his hate is destroying him.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) An unlikely noir with glamour girl Betty Grable and Victor Mature (who I usually hate) in a murder mystery told in flashbacks. The killer thing about this movie, which recurs in many noirs, is the use of a popular song that is played over and over throughout the movie. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is used in this movie, and it will wipe out of your mind all memories of Dorothy and the Tin Man. It was the breakthrough movie for Laird Cregar as the obsessive detective. He died young and it’s a tragedy. He was one of the best actors who ever was in movies.

Detour (1945) Much has been written about this low-budget film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. It’s the fastest 65 minutes of movie you’ll ever sit through. Not a minute of wasted film. Proof that you don’t need a big budget just a great story. Ann Savage is the spice that makes this movie pop!

The Scarf (1951) This movie is a cousin to Detour. This story, about an escaped inmate from an insane asylum who is trying to figure out if he really committed a murder, takes its time getting started, but once Mercedes McCambridge picks up the inmate  (John Ireland) on the side of the road, the journey begins. Like Detour’s Ann Savage, McCambridge tears into every line of dialogue like a vicious cat. It also has a great nightclub scene.

Hangover Square (1945) Again with Laird Cregar. A musician suffers from a condition that has him go temporarily mad when he hears high-pitched sounds. Another ongoing theme of noir is  “rooting for the criminal.” Cregar creates sympathy with his character so that the audience knows he is just a man who cannot help what he is doing.

Furies (1950) One of the queens of the genre, Barbara Stanwyck, gives a tour de force performance in this noir western. Stanwyck’s hate and revenge for her father drive the story of this Greek tragedy-like film. It’s got the look of a western, but the heart of pure darkness.

Fourteen Hours (1951) Richard Basehart plays a gay man whose life is no longer worth living, and he spends 14 hours on the ledge of a building. Not a typical noir, but the characters who are drawn into this unusual situation are the people on the street watching the drama unfold. Amazing moments with Agnes Moorehead as the dominating mother and Barbara Bel Geddes as the girlfriend who ‘understands’.

Female on the Beach (1955). Joan Crawford, Queen of the Noirs, stars in this camp classic. A great story about deception, but the thing that makes this film is the unforgettable lines per minute:

“I have a nasty imagination, and I’d like to be left alone with it.”

“You must go with the house–like plumbing.”

“You’re about as friendly as a suction pump…”

_____

Keep up with my noir recommendations on the Home Projectionist “What Are You Watching?” Facebook page.

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All 85 Best Actresses Performances in 9 minutes

Posted by Johnny C on November 29, 2012
Posted in: Movies. 1 Comment

YouTuber Doomsdaydiaries has done this before, once with the Tony Award winning actresses and then shortly before the last Academy Awards with the nominated Best Supporting Actresses. He has outdone himself this time with doing impersonations of all 85 actresses who have won the Academy Award.

He’s a tad manic at times, but this guy knows his movies. My favorites are his impersonation of Janet Gaynor in SUNRISE and Shirley Booth in COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA.

Enjoy!

What’s My What?!!!

Posted by Johnny C on November 14, 2012
Posted in: TV Series. Leave a comment

For the last few months I’ve been having very casual group movie nights on Sundays.  As Elaine’s character on Seinfeld once remarked, “I need my Sunday night wind down.”  These nights are usually not planned and I’ll show either a randomly picked film noir from Netflix streaming or something that I normally wouldn’t show to a big group.  However, we always watch an episode of What’s My Line? (1950-1967).  A staple of Sunday nights on CBS for nearly two decades, this show is a perfect, quiet way to end the weekend.  Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen, and host John Charles Daly are at their most genteel with manners that you never see anymore.

There are some great moments on these shows:  the regular nervous contestants who try to stump the panel with their occupations; guest panelists Steve Allen who coined the phrase “bigger than a breadbox”; and Steve Lawrence, Alan King, Tony Randal, and Woody Allen are a delight to see.  My favorite mystery guest has to be  Groucho Marx appearance.  He plays them like a cat with a mouse.

One of my regular guests on Sunday is the famous Cynthia Plaster Caster. Cynthia is a rock and roll icon who is known for being one of the original groupies who made plaster casts of rock stars penises. It’s always great to have her over to hear her comments about the people she’s met throughout her life, some of whom are in the movies and television shows we are watching.

I bring her up because of the episode of  What’s My Line? we watched this Sunday.  Per the usual, John Daly introduced the panel and then the first guest.  The dowdy lady who came out wrote her name… Miss Falik!   And her occupation? She makes water pistols.  I thought Cynthia’s head was going to explode.  Miss Falik!  Water pistols!  From then on the panel’s questions were all ‘phallic’ in nature:   Can this give pleasure to both men and women?   Would this have to be visible to give pleasure?  Dorothy Kilgallen asks, “Is this manipulated by hand… ?

And that’s just the start…  You never know what you are going  to find on a Sunday night…!!!

Is it Live or Memorex? A Night with Barbra Streisand

Posted by Johnny C on November 7, 2012
Posted in: Reviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

Recently, I did something I never thought I would get to do: See Barbra Streisand in person, in concert. In her whole 50-year career, she has performed in concert less than one hundred times. From 1969 until the mid-80s she never performed in public due to stage fright. When she did come back, the concerts were such major events that the chance to get tickets was impossible or insanely expensive. But this last month, I decided it was probably going to be my last chance to see her as she turned 70 this year. Plus, I had a little extra cash to spend the obscene amount of money needed to buy a ticket.

It was an important to me to go as well. Streisand was one of, if not the biggest, influences in my teenage years. As a meek and weak child of the 70s, who often would get picked on for being too skinny, not good at sports, a ama’s boy, so to speak, Streisand stood for the outcast who made good. The girl who they called ugly on the school yard who ended up dating handsome movie stars, who could tell everyone you can’t stop me, I’m going to do it. And then there was her voice, which is incomparable, loud, brash with a “fuck you, world, I’m going to hold this note 20 seconds because I can” attitude. There is a whole orchestra of emotions in her voice.

Before the instant world of immediate entertainment gratification, each new album I got of hers was an event. Every Christmas, my parents or sister would get me another album. And I would put my headphones on and listen to it over and over until I had squeezed every ounce of emotion out of it, until the timbre of her voice was rumbling around in my head like some wind that wouldn’t stop howling. When things got bad in high school as I suffered through bullying, I would get through the day by remembering every note of her albums.

So, needless to say, 35 years later, there are many shades of emotion for me when it comes to her. Going to this concert was a form of closure, homecoming, and remembrance. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to react. Would I breakdown, recalling that her voice probably pulled me through those dark years, kept me alive, gave me hope? I would actually be in the same room with this person for whom I used to seek out the latest photos, thinking that seeing the newest photo brought me that much closer to being in her immediate reality. I know, that’s nuts…

Through Facebook, I’ve reconnected with a few high school friends. One friend was also a huge Streisand fan and we connected back then through our fanship. He wrote on my wall the day I was going:

“Tonight when the house lights dim and the music starts, sit back, relax, clear your mind and enjoy every frickin’ moment. Something you’ve thought about your whole life is about to happen. I’m so excited for you. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.”

So what happened: I had a really nice time. No catharsis, no moment where I said, “Wow… this is the moment I had been waiting for all my life.” It was just a great concert. I thought long and hard afterwards…

What happened? I’ve been to concerts where the singers took me out of myself, wrapped me in the songs and music: Peggy Lee comes to mind; seeing Keely Smith; Frank Sinatra at the Chicago Theatre, sitting in the front row of the balcony, feeling like I was watching something historic that was fading away; Rod McKuen, whose simple performance and words brought me to tears.

The difference? The ‘stadium show experience.’ I don’t know if it would have been different if I had paid $500 to sit in the front section, but in the $300 seats, she was just a little woman, a football field away from me.   However, on both sides of her were two projection screens with multi-camera views of the concert. It was a concert that seemed to be produced with the intention that it would be sold for television.

At one point, I turned to my friend Ben who was sitting next to me and said, “ I’ve 3 letters to describe this concert…P.B.S.” Barbra sang, then introduced some guests, who sang with her then did a few songs on their own. The guests were middle of the spectrum genres: Il Volo, three very young tenors who would be at home on any summer night at Ravinia; Chris Botti, a talented trumpeter;  and her son, Jason Gould. I could feel the places where the pledge breaks would naturally fit. The one surprise was how effortlessly she chatted with her guests and addressed the audience in some carefully written ad libs. However, that just reinforced the feeling of a variety show. I have to admit that when she first came out, I did feel a rush to see her and I got a little teary eyed during “Didn’t We?” but as the show went on, I less frequently looked at the stage but just looked at the giant projection screens.

Mega-Streisand comes out of the dark at the United Center

It has to be twenty years since I’ve been to one of those giant shows before the show was shown on the giant screens. (I think the last time, believe it or not, was RUSH, where I don’t think I ever even saw the band, but just the laser beams shooting over my head.) I realized that this concert was less about Streisand on stage and more about 20,000 people all having a group televised projection experience. It was live, it was happening at that moment, but it was also on television. Why look at the stage when what you really needed to see was up on the screens?

Last year, Streisand did a private concert at the Vanguard in New York, where she had last performed in 1963. Only one hundred people were able to get tickets. The Clintons, Donna Karen, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the likes were in attendance. A few months after the show, the concert was released on BluRay. I bought it and decided to watch it by myself one Friday. I ordered in dinner, got a bottle of wine and settled in to watch it on my big projection system. The clarity of the image and the quality of the sound turned my living room into the Vanguard. It was as if I was there, front row. I wept and felt that this was an amazing performer, the one who touched me when I was 14 sitting in my parent’s basement.

Regardless, I’m glad I had the experience of seeing one of the greatest singers in history. Check that off my bucket list. Now I just need to figure out how to see Connie Francis…

Thanks to Ben Alba and Aitor Mendoza for the photos.

RIP Sylvia Kristel

Posted by Johnny C on October 18, 2012
Posted in: RIP. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

Sylvia Kristel was the queen of soft porn movies. She died after a long battle with cancer.

Kristel was the face of sexuality for a generation. In the late 1970’s there was a pay television service called ON TV. It was a cheap way to get cable-type service, but without having cable. (Chicago didn’t have cable until 1981).

We had a bootleg ONTV box that my father got from a co-worker.  It opened up the world of bad cable movies to my family.  This was years before high definition, of course, and all the movies were fuzzy and had a lot of hiss over the soundtrack.  (Actually, ONTV’s claim to fame was that it was the first place STAR WARS was shown on television. It might have been my first viewing party.)

Every night at midnight, the system would switch to a different frequency and they would show adult soft porn films, for an extra charge if you were paying for the service.  On regular television sets without the box the picture would scramble and occasionally you would be able to catch the briefest shot of a breast or a love-making scene. Sometimes a word or two would float over the static noise. Everyone knew about this.  I recall going to parties where scrambled ON TV movies were on, and people would gather and giggle.

After my parents would go to sleep, I would sneak in and turn on the television set;  As a 17 year old, it was as if the gates of heaven were opened up.  I watched such classics as THE WORLD OF HARRY PARIS, THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO

They were terrible, terrible movies. Except for a boob or butt shot, and lots of humping, they were pretty tame by today’s standards. Among these movies, the ultimate star was Sylvia Kristel.  She was the epitome of sexuality,   every boy’s dream of what a woman could be.  Soft focus, the warble of strings.

EMMANUELLE was the film that started it all.  It was porn for the masses, not graphic like DEEP THROAT, but quiet and sensual.

Kristel could never break away from this role, even though she did get some main stream pictures such as AIRPORT 79 and THE LOVE BOMB.  She was always the sex symbol.

I recall seeing PRIVATE LESSONS at The Brighton Theater when it came out.  The theater would show a cartoon at 1 pm, two PG rated films at 3 pm and 5 pm, and  then an R-rated film at 7 pm.  I would stay all day.   This movie was every teenage boy’s fantasy come to life.

It makes me sad she has passed away so young. She brought class to sex.

Happy 100th Birthday to Irene Ryan

Posted by Johnny C on October 17, 2012
Posted in: Birthdays, Movies, Netflix Streaming. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Most people only remember Irene Ryan as Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies, but before that she was an accomplished in vaudeville, with her husband Tim Ryan, and in movies and the Broadway. Recently on Netflix streaming, a couple of her long-lost Monogram films have surfaced, HOT RHYTHM and SARONG GIRL. The films written by her husband and featured Irene in a poor man’s Grace Allen type character. In HOT RHYTHM she steals the show.

However, it wasn’t until she was cast in Beverly Hillbillies that she reached the status of star.

I’d always heard the story that Irene Ryan died backstage after singing this song on stage while in Pippen. However, the true story is that she collapsed with a stroke after finishing the number, but flew back to California where she died two days later.

Irene sings No Time At All… (forgive the weird cartoon attached to it)

Hollywood on the Lake

Posted by Johnny C on October 15, 2012
Posted in: interiors. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

This weekend The Chicago Architecture Foundation’s hosted a citywide event that opened up some historic Chicago buildings for tours; theaters, restaurants, and apartment buildings all were available to see and hear about their history and importance. I made a special point to get to St. Augustine College, which was the site for the old Essanay Studios.

Essanay Studios was one of the biggest movie picture studios in the country in the early part of the 20th century. They were best known for launching the film careers of Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin and Gloria Swanson.

White City Cinema has a wonderful write-up of the secret world of Chicago’s film history that I suggest you read.

St. Augustine College is having a funding drive to restore parts of the building and to create a Charlie Chaplin auditorium in one of the large rooms that a hundred years ago his early films were created.  The room feels historic. Their goal is save part of cinema history, create a museum, and offer a place for people to come to learn about and watch silent films.

Learn more about their fundraising drive here:  St. Augustine College.

Also, I’m lucky enough to live in beautiful Ravenswood Manor on the Northside of Chicago, just about three miles from the old studio. Across the park from me is a huge mansion. It was built by Essanay Studios in order house stars who were in Chicago to film. It’s an amazing place and a couple of years ago was up for sale.

Here is the real estate tour of that property.

Happy National Coming Out Day

Posted by Johnny C on October 11, 2012
Posted in: Movies. 1 Comment

If you were a teen in the 70’s and 80’s, there weren’t many places to see yourself in the movies. Gays were serial killers like in THE FAN, or they were comics like Paul Lynde, who would still never ever say the word gay. I looked for who I was deep inside and it took a long time to figure out why I felt different. But these films seemed to slowly nudge me a bit out of that space and push this gay boy out into the light.

THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT
Although a British TV movie, it had to have been the first time that I ever saw a portrait of a gay man. Although Quentin Crisp was effeminate, he never compromises who he was. I watched this every time it aired on PBS. 

DEATH TRAP
It’s hard to talk about this without giving away a SPOILER. But Deathtrap was the first time that I ever saw two men kiss on screen. It was followed by the audience disgusted screams. But at 19, I thought, huh… what’s this?

CRUISING
With the advent of the VCR, I was able to watch movies that I wouldn’t be caught dead watching in a theater… CRUISING was one of them. I haven’t seen it in thirty years, but I think as Al Pacino’s character delved into dark world of leather, I was nudged a little more into wanting to explore this dangerous new territory.

PARTNERS
This movie was a comic take on the same story, gay serial killer. In it, Ryan O’Neal has to pretend to be gay and work with a gay partner. Again John Hurt plays another effeminate gay man, but he was a lead and Ryan O’Neal goes from being disgusted to accepting him for who he is, his partner.

VICTOR/VICTORIA
Again, I hope I’m not giving away a SPOILER, but who hasn’t seen this film? Alex Karras, who recently passed away, plays James Garner’s tough bodyguard. When it is revealed that he is gay, it’s a shock and played for laughs. But it was so important because it was the first time I could remember a gay character being the tough guy and the audience is glad that Robert Preston is going to have him as a boyfriend.

YENTL
There is a scene in YENTL where Barbra pretending to be a man comes face to face with her sexuality. Although she was a woman pretending to be a man, watching this scene hit me like a brick, because this was what it was like to be a young man trying to hide feelings that I had for other men. I was terrified that someone would find out about me, but I wanted to get naked and swim with the other boys.

THE WIZARD OF OZ
I know this is trite to include this film, but I will always remember after I had come out, I had a boyfriend and was well on my journey when I went to see a screening. It was theater packed with gay men. The electricity in the audience was palpable. It was like I had finally come home.