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/

HOT CARS (1956)

Her: ‘Do you always sell every car you demonstrate?’ 

Him: ‘No, but I don’t always get taken for a ride either’

Going by the title, it'd be no big surprise if 'Hot Cars', released in 1956, turned out to be another ‘sinsational’ teens-gone-wild flick, joining the likes of 'Dragstrip Girl', 'Teenage Thunder', 'Hot Rod Gang', 'Speed Crazy', 'Hot Rod Girl', 'Young and Dangerous' or 'Joy Ride' on the drive-in screen.

But it's not. There's not a greaser or street rod in sight, just deluxe production rides and foreign sports jobs that are ‘hot’ only because they're all stolen - something Nick Dunn (John Bromfield) finds out after days on the job as a sales jockey for a string of Los Angeles used car lots. 

Dunn realizes that owner Arthur Markel (Ralph Clanton) is fronting a chop-shop (Markel calls it "a refrigeration plant, where hot cars are brought to cool down"). But Dunn now has nowhere to go. Fired from his last car sales job for being straight with the customers, Dunn has a gun to his head. His infant son Davy needs an operation for which Markel will pay if Dunn will play. But Markel already knows that Dunn's done. The dealer was hip to Dunn’s plight before hiring him, using a blonde knockout named Karen Winter (Joi Lansing) to bait the hook. By the time Dunn figures out he’s been duped it’s too late and Markel moves to fit him up as a one-size-fits-all patsy. 

A trim little programmer, 'Hot Cars' was a release of Bel-Air Productions, a joint venture of 20th Century Fox producer/ director Howard W. Koch, and independent producer Aubrey Schenck. For a time in the 1950s, the company turned out a whack of low-budget, quick-buck features including several titles familiar to fans of raucous B noirs: 'Big House U.S.A.' (1955), 'Crime Against Joe' (1956), 'Three Bad Sisters' (1956), 'The Girl in Black Stockings' (1957), and 'Hell Bound' (1957). 

The film runs fast and smooth on a tuned script by screenwriter Don Martin, whose film and television credits extended four decades. Martin scripted several of the original ‘Falcon’ releases and from 1947 to 1958 contributed to a list of B-thrillers, among them: 'Lighthouse' (1947), 'The Hatbox Mystery' (1947), 'Search for Danger' (1949), 'Destination Murder' (1950), 'Shakedown' (1950), 'Double Jeopardy' (1955), 'Confession' (1955), 'The Man is Armed' (1956) and 'The Violent Road' (1958). His pulp novel 'Shed No Tears' was filmed in 1948. Once a 'lost noir', the movie was found a few years back by Alpha Entertainment. 

A chunk of 'Hot Cars' was shot on location, offering some tantalizing sightings of mid-century Los Angeles e.g. the iconic 'Jack’s at the Beach' restaurant and lounge where Joi Lansing first begins stroking John Bromfield to see if he’s up for the ride. Lansing was on the scene in Hollywood from the day the bus pulled up. She was a teenage model, then moved into films and TV. Well-known as a party girl, she had affairs with many of the usual suspects, including George Raft, Mickey Rooney and Frank Sinatra and was still good for four marriages along the way. 

But Lansing also had her head screwed on straight when it came to her career - though she wasn’t that much of an actress and was never encouraged to be one, given her famously alluring pout and purpose-built figure. Her movie appearances were limited mostly to bit parts (including 'Touch of Evil') but she did better on television, landing smaller supporting roles plus regular stints on 'The Bob Cummings Show', 'Klondike', and 'The Beverly Hillbillies'. 'Hot Cars' is worth it for Lansing alone. She’s sexy and something to watch, especially when she goes to work on the straight-arrow Dunn: 

Him: ‘I told you already, I’m married’.

Her: ‘I have a terrible memory’.

The film also provided a better-than-usual part for John Bromfield, himself a ready-made leading man who never really found solid footing in hollywood. Though tall, dark and athletic, he had to warm a bench that already held hunks like Rory Calhoun, Ray Danton, Brad Dexter, Steve Cochrane, Richard Egan, William Campbell, Jeffrey Hunter, Vince Edwards and John Russell. 

He had started out encouragingly enough in tryout roles for Paramount in 'Sorry, Wrong, Number' and 'Rope of Sand'. As a featured actor he soon had to settle for an assortment of cheap westerns, horror titles and crime programmers like 'The Big Bluff', 'Crime Against Joe', and the exuberantly trashy 'Three Bad Sisters'. Bromfield was a capable enough performer, just not a very interesting one, evincing no particular charisma, sexual intensity or dark places. He was what he was: a handsome, rugged straight-shooter and that’s how he was cast. Well-suited for the role of Nick Dunn, he's just fine in it. 

'Hot Cars' presents more as a conventional crime thriller than film noir. It doesn’t bother itself much with moody atmospherics and much else visually. Karen Winter arrives as a femme fatale but fails to damage or destroy. Nick Dunn is neither a doomed protagonist nor chump. He’s not a victim of his own device. While he is a man in a trap, he’s able to find his own way to an escape. That said, 'Hot Cars' still feels like noir. The basic constructions are there, needing only to be framed slightly differently as they would have been a decade or so earlier. In that way the movie is not so different from others now seen as ‘late-period’. However, none of this much impacts much on the film's high-velocity performance as it rockets along like a monkey on a zip line, propelled by a hipster jazz track by bandleader Les Baxter.

In all 'Hot Cars' is just one very cool ride that’s definitely worth taking out for a drive. 

13 WEST STREET (1962)

Aerospace scientist (Alan Ladd) gets roughed up by some bad seeds from Beverly Hills after his car runs runs out of gas. When the police investigation headed by Rod Steiger doesn't move along fast enough, Ladd decides to do it his way - which brings down all kinds of bad on both him and his wife (Dolores Dorn). 

Directed by Phillip Leacock, best known for the UK family classic 'The Kidnappers', '13 West Street' is ordinary at best, uneasy at worst. By this time Ladd's late-stage alcoholism and drug use had ravaged his looks and once-mesmerizing screen presence. Steiger just contorts like an impacted bowel.

Much more appealing is Dorn, who got other kinds of exposure in the '70's drive-in hits, 'The Candy Snatchers' (1973) and 'Truck Stop Women' (1974). In '13 West Street', she's very good in the part of a docile housewife who stands by her man but later is willing to stand up when the time comes and the need arises.