Noirvember Scavenger Hunt

Kristina at the film-centric blog Speakeasy is conducting a Noirvember Scavenger Hunt. Since March 2016 I’ve been writing a handful of sentences about every movie I’ve watched, which makes finding my way back to titles and directors easy. So how could I not take up the hunt?

My picks for the hunt’s fourteen items:

Dan Duryea
Chicago Calling (dir. John Reinhardt, 1951). One of the bleakest films I’ve ever seen, with Duryea as a hard-drinking failed photographer living in Los Angeles’s impoverished Bunker Hill neighborhood. I’d say it must be Duryea’s finest performance.

Lizabeth Scott
As Antonia “Toni” Marachek in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1946).“You were looking for trouble, but it was a good kind of trouble,” says Toni.

There are no small parts
From Dark Passage (dir. Delmar Daves, 1947), a three-way tie. In order of appearance: Tom D’Andrea as Sam, the cabdriver who aspires to buy two goldfish: “It adds class to the joint. Makes it a little homey.” Houseley Stevens as Dr. Walter Coley, all-night plastic surgeon: “I perfected my own special technique twelve years ago, before I was kicked out of the medical association.” And Tom Fadden as the cook in Harry’s Wagon: “Easy does it.”

Odd couple
Nick (Cecil Kellaway) and Cora (Lana Turner) in The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Tay Garnett, 1946). I think we’re meant to wonder what Cora was running from to end up married to Nick.

RKO
The Window (dir. Ted Tetzlaff, 1949). From a story by Cornell Woolrich, with the ill-fated Bobby Driscoll as a boy who witnesses a murder and can’t get anyone to believe him.

1960s
Blast of Silence (dir. Allen Baron, 1961). A hit man arrives in New York City at Christmas time to do a job, and things go wrong. A grim vision of the city and a grim vision of human character that emerges in Lionel Stander’s voiceover.

Amnesia
Somewhere in the Night (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946). John Hodiak as a man who, like Oedipus, is determined to uncover the truth of his identity, whatever the cost. And Nancy Guild as a nightclub singer/caregiver, a cross between Lauren Bacall and Teresa Wright.


Remake
M (dir. Joseph Losey, 1951). Fritz Lang’s movie moves to Los Angeles. It’s a deep cast, with Luther Adler, Walter Burke, Raymond Burr, Howard Da Silva, Norman Lloyd, David Wayne (the agonized killer), and a long episode in the Bradbury Building, the movie’s Best Supporting Actor.

Great villain
Born to Kill (dir. Robert Wise, 1947). Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wilde, an eerily Trumpian sort who dominates and destroys everyone in his way as he attempts to maintain relationships with two sisters (Audrey Long, Claire Trevor). This movie begins and ends with over-the-top scenes of jealousy and brutal violence. In between, nearly everything is magnificent squalor.

Robert Siodmak
The opening scene in a diner is by itself enough to make The Killers (1946) my choice. Fun to see the nervous proprietor (Harry Hayden) realize that he’s caught in a noir. Flashback upon flashback follows.

Mob boss
The Big Combo (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1955). Richard Conte as Mr. Brown, who turns a radio and a hearing aid into instruments of torture.

Journalism
Call Northside 777 (dir. Henry Hathwaway, 1948). Jimmy Stewart plays P.J. McNeal, a Chicago reporter looking into the guilt or innocence of a man serving a ninety-nine-year sentence for killing a cop. If there’s any debate as to whether this movie counts as noir, the scene in which McNeal meets Wanda Skutnik (Betty Garde) should settle it.

UK
The Woman in Question (dir. Anthony Asquith, 1950). A British Rashomon, in which a police inspector is given five different accounts of a murdered fortune teller, Madame Astra (Jean Kent). A tour de force for Kent, who changes from genteel lady to slattern to siren to helpless damsel to scorned lover.

Ensemble cast
The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston, 1941). Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook, Jr., all waiting in Sam Spade’s apartment for a package to be delivered.