HELL BOUND (1957)

“I have an allergy - people with a conscience.” - Jordan

“There isn’t any part of the anatomy I don’t know, even with my eyes closed” – Paula

Two titles with differing ambitions, the wildly baroque ‘Touch of Evil‘ (1958) and the grimly fatalistic 'Odds Against Tomorrow’ (1959) have come to signify the final erosion of classic film noir. But a few grungy late-period B-movie thrillers like ‘Hell Bound’ (1957) had already gone ahead ahead and conjured up what some of the actual post-noir detritus might look like. 

Some might be more than enough. ‘Hell Bound’ is a seamy side-show of raw pulp psychodrama, whacked-out dialog, unrestrained violence, sexpots in glasses, foot fetishism, and an excitable psychotronic sound track (scored by Les Baxter, one of the emperors of tiki bar exotica). While the film is recognizably of the classic cycle, it also recognizably looks to be heading off somewhere else.  

From the opening frame we’re not sure where we are or what’s going on other than there’s a film-in-film being screened outlining how a store of medical-grade narcotics could be boosted from a cargo ship. It’s a clever set-up involving a ship-board snitch, a tame port authority health officer, a bogus seaman and a cool-headed nurse imposter. 

When the show's over and lights go on we get to see who else has been watching. Among those is crime boss Harry Quantro (Frank Fenton) who says he’s seen everything he needs to. Quantro’s ready to stake the heist but on one condition. He wants his eye-catching girlfriend Paula (actress/real-life Playboy Playmate June Blair) to play the nurse who’ll bundle the drugs off the ship. Just to protect his investment you understand. 

Jordan (John Russell) a free-lance villain who’s both planned the caper and made the demo film readily gives way. If it means having to side-line his girlfriend Jan (Margo Woode) already installed in the getaway ambulance, so be it. Jordan has his own plans for the quarter million dollars’ worth of uncut dope and doesn’t intend to let a cheap tramp like Paula get in his way. Jordon’s already got his hands full with other gang recruits Stanley Thomas (George E. Mather) a feckless and desperate drug addict who’s scheduled as the phony sailor-in-distress and Herbert Fay Jr. (Stanley Adams) the real-life health officer and an angry self-loathing neurotic. 

  
Jordan knows full well that his so-called crew is a sack of grief. But for practical and personal reasons he has to play it as it lays and figures he can maintain control through fear if nothing else. However as the big day approaches things start to come unhinged. Thomas goes to a burlesque joint to score dope and goes berserk when his dealer - who's blind - only seems to have eyes for a no-hope stripper; Fay Jr. gets fall-down drunk and ugly in a bar and starts shooting his fat mouth off; later Jordan beats Thomas senseless and then takes after Paula when he finds out she’s fallen for the ambulance driver, Eddie Mason (Stuart Whitman) and about to blow the whole operation. As for the snitch - the only guy who’s played it straight - once Jordan’s got what he needs from him, he kills him. That too now seems like part of the plan.

Jordan easily rates among the most amoral and dangerous villains in film noir and as played by John Russell also one of the coolest - a totally disaffected, very present day killer. Had Donald Westlake/ Richard Stark penned the ‘Parker’ series during Russell’s on- screen working life, the actor would have been the one to play him. Russell was big and handsome, a former college athlete and a decorated ex-marine. A force on-screen, Russell in ‘Hell Bound’ is terrifyingly all there. 

Eventually the combination of Jordon's calculation and ruthlessness manage to get things on track and likewise ‘Hell Bound’ begins now to accelerate in a straighter line towards the climax. As the prospect of further mishap appears pushed to the side, we can cast a hopeful eye on the prize. Maybe it’s not too late for this thing to happen. Maybe.

‘Hell Bound’ keeps the suspense turned up high. Some of the heat is a result of the tension that exists between the things that we readily recognize - the familiar narratives and visual mechanics of film noir - and some that we don’t - or might just rather not. We know that classic noir would lose out in the ‘60’s to far more grim and exploitative expressions of its own dark impulses. And we don’t have to look too hard in ‘Hell Bound’ for those grindhouse moments. Overall there’s not a hell of a lot in ‘Hell Bound’ of what Eddie Muller describes as classic noir’s romantic ‘suffering in style’. Mostly it's just suffering.

‘Hell Bound’ in its own morbidly fraught fashion makes for a fascinating low-rent match-up against better regarded A-list noirs such as ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950) and the ‘The Killing’ (1956). The movie was director William J. Hole’s first feature (his career was mostly in television) but he had veteran cinematographer Carl E. Guthrie on set to help out with some of the visual heavy lifting. Guthrie was a pro and by the time he was assigned to ‘Hell Bound’ he'd notched over a hundred movies including ‘Flaxy Martin (1947), ‘Backfire’ (1950) and the groundbreaking ‘Caged’ (1950’). 

Hence a fair bit of ‘Hell Bound is more expertly set-up and impressively lensed than might be expected especially the many exterior sequences shot in and around gloomy commercial/ industrial sites. The film ends in the surreal, horrific desolation of a Los Angeles’ Red trolley graveyard, the real-life result of the corrupt ‘decommissioning’ of one of the largest public transit systems in the world. Hell bound indeed.

However the film’s most lasting sequence is that of Jordon’s brutal beating of Stanley. The urgency and fury of it anticipates the opening scene of Sam Fuller’s ‘The Naked Kiss’ (1964) in which Constance Towers thrashes her pimp. Both are unexpected, relentless, suffocating.

But then not much about ‘Hell Bound’ is expected. It's definitely not a standard-issue heist title in which some single fated moment of human weakness or logistical coming-apart serves to undo an otherwise perfect crime. ‘Hell Bound’ is wreckage from the word go  - and what could be more noir than that.

THE MIAMI STORY (1954)

'The Miami Story' was the last of the classic-period noirs known as ‘semi-documentaries’(the earliest being 'The House on 92nd Street' 1945). Framed by a ‘stentorian’ voice-over, we were informed as to "what we are about to see" and then guided through. The device was intended to  add gravitas to stalwart tales of the forces of authority  fearlessly struggling against enemies of society and state like mobsters and communists. And it's annoying as hell. 

Thankfully the narration on 'The Miami Story's is less intrusive than that of many better known semi-docs e.g. 'Call Northside 777' (1948), 'Walk a Crooked Mile' (1948) or 'Walk East on Beacon' (1952). This one just wants to get on with it and does it ever.

The bad guys this time are members of a Miami organization led by kingpin Tony Brill (Luther Adler) who has a lock both on criminal activity in the city and the City itself. However a Cuban gang is starting to muscle in and make things uncomfortable for 'the syndicate'. Meantime, the cops don't seem able to do much so an independent committee of the prominent and the virtuous decides it has to fight fire with fire. It enlists the help of a reformed Chicago gangster, Mick Flagg (Barry Sullivan) who knows the whole mob set-up and also has personal scores to settle with Brill.

While 'The Miami Story' has a few plot holes big enough to fall through and never be seen again, director Fred F. Sears pushes the pace hard and fast enough that we’re around them before we really take notice. Sears showed an auteurist’s touch when it came to mid-line films (somewhere between an 'A' and a 'B') like 'The Miami Story' and he turned out a bunch of them in a very short time: Target Hong Kong Kong (1953), The 49th Man (1953), Cell 2455 Death Row (1955), Chicago Syndicate (1955), Teenage Crime Wave (1955), Miami Expose (1956), Rumble on the Docks (1956), Escape from San Quentin (1957). Few directors were more adept than Sears at successfully negotiating a way around so-so scripts and modest production budgets. 

The 'Miami Story' also provided Sears with a stronger core of actors than he’d had to work with prior. Among them was Barry Sullivan, a popular supporting and character lead whose good looks and physical authority ensured him a long career in films and television. Sullivan was a born B picture actor and a good one, lifting up any film he was in both in quality and prestige. As British writer Andrew Spicer said of him, he had the range to turn in persuasive performances as a suave schemer ('Suspense' 1946, 'Framed' 1947, 'No Questions Asked' 1951); a sympathetic if weak-willed victim ('Jeopardy' 1953,'Loophole' 1954); or an insanely jealous husband ('Cause for Alarm' 1951). In A pictures Sullivan could never have been anything more than a leading man but in B's he could be a tragic hero. Sullivan featured best as a man on the edge and sometimes over it. In his signature film of the classic noir cycle 'The Gangster' (1947) he plays Shubunka, a small-time racketeer who is self-loathing, paranoid and doomed. It's an extraordinary film and performance both.

In 'The Miami Story', he mostly gets to act tough, which he does as well anyone; likewise, Luther Adler as Brill the mob boss, and bombshell Adele Jergens as Brill’s moll, Gwen Abbott. Jergens is particularly scary - partly, it can be said, due to some weirdly bad hair-styling and more heft than she'd carried to that time in other pictures. Gwen is dangerously damaged goods and a threat to everyone around her including her better younger sister Holly, played by Beverly Garland. 

But another big star of 'The Miami Story' is the Miami area itself, especially Miami Beach. Much of the movie was shot on location and shows off the city at its  swankiest Mid-Century Modern. Those were the days and 'The Miami Story's trip back in time is well worth however much it costs to get there.

VANISHING POINT (1970)/ GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974)

An ex-cop/ former racing driver (Barry Newman) gets whacked-out on Benzedrine and sets out to muscle a torqued-up 1970 Dodge Charger from Denver to San Francisco in record time. County cops and state troopers soon are all over him like a cheap suit. 

However, local folks including a soul brother disc jockey (Cleavon Little), some free-livin’-and-lovin’ hippies and a cagey desert recluse (Dean Jagger) sense an anti-hero-in-the-making and help Newman evade the ‘blue meanies’ and other hostilities on the way to existential nowhere.

Further making out it’s supposed to be something more than just a car chase movie, ‘Vanishing Point’s protagonist is known only as ‘Kowalski’, a moniker akin to Kafka’s ‘Josef K’ or Camus’ ‘Meursault’ - isolated, fated individuals looking into the abyss. Walter Hill later put same in a car and called him ‘The Driver’; Nicolas Winding Refn more recently, just ‘Driver’. If you’re going to head off into the abyss, you may as well do it in a cool set of wheels.

Unfortunately 'Vanishing Point' comes apart under the weight of its self-conscious heaviosity and general raggedness. Apart from Dean Jagger not much acting happens. Director Richard Safarian often fails to point the camera in any direction that matters. The plot (which you’re not necessarily supposed to care about in an action movie) manages to get in the way of itself and the action both. But it's fair to say that the ending works and almost justifies what it took to get there. Almost. 

When first released ‘Vanishing Point’ did well at the box office, resonating with ‘70’s audiences that earlier had embraced ‘Easy Rider’ (1969) to which the film’s been compared. But thankfully that was then and this is now. 

A cult movie of similar ilk that’s stood up better is ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ (1974), a brooding just-for-the-hell-of-it vanity project of Hollywood stunt driver H. B. Halicki which the cities of Long Beach and Torrence, California have never forgotten. 

This one is the big ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ of '70's car chase B-pictures. While it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense, it doesn’t really matter. ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ is half killer, half filler - the filler being the first part of the film which has a go at a plot. After that, just sit back and enjoy the ride. As Leonard Cohen might had said, "dance me to the end of noir".  

THE BLIND GODDESS (1948)

Derek Waterhouse (Michael Denison) learns from a friend (subsequently murdered) that his employer Lord Brasted (Hugh Williams) has embezzed thousands of pounds intended for post-war relief efforts. He confronts Brasted who, while denying the allegation, offers his Secretary a ‘present’ of £10,000 pounds and employment abroad.

Waterhouse refuses and Brasted, seeing Waterhouse has no proof, takes him to court in an attempt to discredit and ultimately destroy him. Brasted is urged on by his wife, Lady Brasted (Anne Crawford), who’s in fact a former lover of Waterhouse and who turns out to be something less than a lady. 
  
‘The Blind Goddess’ though based on a play by Patrick Hastings manages to avoid any obvious theatricality - thanks to a script by Sydney and Muriel Box that while wordy is not talky; also to the dexterous direction by Harold French ('The Hour of 13’ 1952, ‘The Paris Express’ 1952, Forbidden Cargo’ 1954).

The little-known Brit-noir is rich with wonderful lead and supporting performances, among them those of Eric Portman as John Dearing KC who serves as Brasted’s attorney and Claire Bloom as Dearing’s daughter, Mary. Bloom is luminous in her first film role. Anne Crawford as the treacherous opportunist Lady Brasted is also a standout. 

The full weight of this noir melodrama is felt particularly in the film’s tense courtroom scenes. However, not all is revealed there as evidence continues to be gathered and as momentum begins first to shift outside of court. The film’s narrative build-out is deft and disciplined and for that clearly does owe something to the play.     

‘The Blind Goddess’ is a splendid British film noir. At one time or other, it showed on BBC Channel Four but needs to find commercial re-issue on DVD to really get the attention it deserves.  

WITNESS IN THE DARK (1959)

The damsel in distress has been a movie mainstay since Pauline first got tied to the tracks. But during the classic film noir cycle of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s women-in- peril began to cohere as a sub-genre with films such as ‘Gaslight’ 1944, ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ 1948 , ‘Moss Rose’ 1947 , ‘Sleep, My Love’ 1948, ‘Lady in a Cage ’ 1964. The endangered woman had become a standard noir trope much like the femme fatale.

A movie that clearly upped the ante was ‘Wait Until Dark’ (1967) directed by Terence Young and starring Audrey Hepburn’ as a woman even more vulnerable by fact of being blind. ‘Wait Until Dark’ was a huge hit and launched a succession of 'blind woman noir' titles that continues unabated, among them: ‘See No Evil’ 1971 w/ Mia Farrow, ‘Blind Fear’ 1989 w/ Shelley Hack, ‘Blind Witness 1989 w/ Victoria Principal, ‘Jennifer Eight 1992 w/ Uma Thurman, ‘Blink’ 1994 w/ Madeline Stowe, ‘Nowhere in Sight’ 2001 w/ Helen Slater, and in 2013, ‘Blindsided’ AKA ‘Penthouse North’ w/ Michelle Monaghan.

However, pre-dating all of them was a gripping little British noir ‘Witness in the Dark’ about a young woman - blind - who is threatened by a killer.  

Jane Pringle (Patricia Dainton) lives in the same apartment building as a widow who owns an expensive jewel broach. The neighborhood seems to know about the broach and a local criminal (Nigel Green) decides to steal it. However he can’t find where she’s hidden it and kills the old lady in the process of looking. As he leaves her building he bumps into Jane who senses his presence. She reaches out and touches the intruder thus ‘seeing’ him. The incident is detailed in the local paper with the story identifying Jane as the widow’s beneficiary. The killer sets about his plan to both steal the broach and kill Jane. 

In outline ‘Witness in the Dark’ does sound like one of those tepid 1950's/ early '60's British crime thrillers that fail to actually thrill. But the devil here is in the details thanks to an ever-more-clever plot and the threatening presence of Nigel Green. The character actor was a familiar face to British movie-goers in the 1950’s and ‘60’s and later to international audiences with starring roles in films such as ‘The Ipcress File’, ‘The Wrecking Crew’ and ‘The Kremlin Letter’. Green might have been a leading man in the Stewart Granger mold had he not come across as being more sinister and threatening than romantic.  

The film also stars Patricia Dainton, a forthright and appealing actress who starred in a host of second-line British productions over about a fifteen year period, most of them darkly noir-stained: ‘’Dancing with Crime’ 1947, ‘Tread Softly’ 1952, ‘Paul Temple Returns’ 1952, ‘Operation Diplomat’ 1953, ‘At the Stroke of Nine’ 1957, ‘No Road Back’ 1957, ‘The House on Marsh Road’ 1960, ‘The Third Alibi’ 1961. Dainton arguably was better than the majority of films she was in and in ‘Witness in the Dark’ gives an courageous performance as a woman clearly unencumbered by her disability. Dainton left acting behind in her early thirties after deciding to stay at home with family (she later became manager of W.H. Smith, one of London’s largest bookstores).

Also featured is Conrad Phillips as an investigating police inspector (Coates) who becomes fond of Jane and a cautious affection begins to develop between them. However even in Coates’ gentle gaze, we're able to get a suggestion of why female blindness has become such a common trope in noir. As Coates does, so are others able to look unrestrained at a blind woman who doesn’t look back or conceal. There’s no immediate point of rejection or resistence. If titillation to be found in that experience then the persistence of the blind-woman-in-peril phenomena in movies starts to makes some sense, albeit unfortunate.

‘Witness in the Dark’ is efficiently directed by Wolf Rilla (‘The Long Rope’ 1953, Roadhouse Girl’ 1953, Piccadilly Third Stop’ 1960, Cairo’1963) and in many ways is more of a movie than its 62-minute length might suggest. Very much worth watching.

THE BIG STEAL (1949)

By Gary Deane

‘The Big Steal’, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer and scripted by Geoffrey Holmes (Daniel Mainwaring) seems best known and least admired for what it isn’t, namely ‘Out of the Past’ (1947). While 'Out of the Past' (also starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer and scripted by Geoffrey Holmes) is looked on as a sublime evocation of film noir, 'The Big Steal’ is seldom looked on at all.

Sitting in the longer and darker shadow of ‘Out of the Past’, it’s understandable that the lighter-hearted ‘The Big Steal’ might get no respect. At just 71 minutes, it’s shorter, slighter and nothing like as memorable. 

However, slighter doesn’t have to mean lesser as far as enjoyment goes and ‘The Big Steal’ is a very easy film to like. Even Bosley Crowther, the high-toned windbag who held the film desk at the 'New York Times' for several decades found it appealing. From his review, July 11, 1949:

"A breath-taking scenic excursion across the landscape of Mexico through villages, on lovely open roads and over towering mountains on switchback highways at a fast and sizzling pace. It seems that a certain tricky fellow, whom Patric Knowles suavely enacts, is trying to escape into the interior of Mexico from Vera Cruz with a load of swag. Seems that his stubborn pursuer is a curious gent played by Robert Mitchum who is accompanied by a lady, prettily played by Jane Greer. Seems that another desperate party, William Bendix is after both and a Mexican police inspector, Ramon Novarro is tailing the lot. Just where and why they are fleeing is rather loosely explained but  obviously they are not friendly people for whenever any of them get together they usually fight. But that is not important and we casually advise that you try not to follow too closely the involution of the plot."

Fair enough. But what's needed now is a case made for ‘The Big Steal’ as film noir. Although the picture has a sunnier disposition, there still are arguments for it as a noir. And as the late Arthur Lyons, author of 'Death on the Cheap: the Lost B Movies of Film Noir' liked to say, "it all starts with the story".   

Lt. Duke Halliday (Mitchum) has been framed for a robbery and is in pursuit of the real thief, Jim Fiske (Knowles). Meantime Halliday is also on the run from his boss, Cpt. Vincent Blake (Bendix) whose reasons for pursuing Halliday are nothing like as straightforward as they first appear. 

Eventually a disillusioned Halliday takes the law into his own hands as 'The ‘Big Steal’ covers some of the same narrative ground as later films by its director Don Siegel. Both Siegel's signature neo-noirs ‘Madigan’ (1968) and ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971) feature cops who defy authority to set things right even if justice done sometimes looks more like vengeance. 

However Siegel whose other classic noirs include 'Private Hell 36' (1954), 'Riot in Cell Block 11' (1954), 'The Line-Up' (1957) doesn't let his characters hang around for long to dwell on the niceties. The director's preference was to cut to the chase. As a former film editor and second-unit man he learned early how to make pictures taut and lean and to get the most out of an action sequence. ‘The Big Steal’ tears along with as many plot twists thrown in as the movie reasonably can handle. 

Mitchum and Greer once again make a great screen twosome. The loose stroppiness of the relationship Holmes has written for them brings out the best in both actors. Mitchum is laconic but alert and Greer delivers one of the most appealing performances of her career (interestingly she came late to the production, replacing Lizabeth Scott who was pulled off the project after Mitchum was arraigned on a marijuana rap). As note-perfect as she was as Cathie Moffat in 'Out of the Past’, director Jacques Tourneur really  didn’t give her much more than just that one note to play as a somewhat impassive 
femme fatale. However there’s nothing at all impassive about the wonderfully peppery Joan Graham. 

Though ‘The Big Steal’ is high-spirited, it's no breezy comedy-suspenser. Its tongue is occasionally in its cheek but there's no archness of a kind poisonous to noir. Siegel is no smirking Hitchcock. ‘The Big Steal’ with its play on betrayal, greed and corruption plus the resonant exchange of tough words and hard fists is still film noir however amiable it may be.

THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (USA 1951)

Hugo Haas’s The Girl on the Bridge sticks to form: an older man becomes enamored of a younger woman and pays the price. This time 'round Haas himself plays an aging shopkeeper who stops a destitute mother (Beverly Michaels) from tossing herself off a bridge. He finds her a place in his home, and then in his heart. She accepts. Unfortunately, she's got a sketchy past that catches up with her in the shape of her ex-jailbird husband and things go to hell in a hurry.

As Haas’s movies tend to, The Girl on the Bridge occasionally turns into tearful sentimentality. Haas's saving grace is the underlying sincerity and conviction that he brings to these noir-stained tear-jerkers. Endearingly self-effacing as an actor and serviceable enough as a director, he deserves greater credit for his undaunted attempts at low-rent artisanal auteurship. 

Other titles worth watching are: Pickup (1951), Strange Fascination (1952), One Girl's Confession (1953), Bait (1954), The Other Woman (1954), Edge of Hell (1956), Hit and Run (1957) and Lizzie (1957).

  















Also, here's a link to a moving little segment from the Bob Edwards Show on NPR, broadcast April 9, 2010 in which the Czech-born Haas, a former refugee from the Soviet regime expresses heart-felt admiration for America: 

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16598/