Noir Movies: Laura

I’m going to end my stream of noir movie posts with Laura, the 1944 movie with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and an incredibly young Vincent Price before he became the king of horror movies. I think this movie is better than The Maltese Falcon and on a par with Casablanca, so after almost 20 movies watched Laura and Casablanca top my list.

Clifton Webb is outstanding as the snobbish Waldo Lydecker, the radio personality who takes credit for bringing culture into the life of beautiful Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). Dana Andrews plays the hero but down to earth cop, Mark McPherson, who falls in love with Laura from the portrait hanging over her mantel. And finally the ne’er do well but suave southern gentleman, Shelby Carpenter is perfectly played by Vincent Price.

This movie has just the right amount of action, romance, suspense and regardless of the number of times I’ve watched this movie, I never fail to remain spellbound.

Which brings me to the book, Laura by Vera Caspary. I forget which book of hers I read first but whichever it was prompted me to read more. I’ve liked all I’ve read so far, not all mysteries. But there was something puzzling in the book to film transition of Laura. As you can see, Waldo Lydecker in the movie is rail thin. However, in the book he is obese–think of Syndey Greenstreet in the Maltese Falcon.  The question is why the change? To accommodate Webb who was substantially better than Greenstreet would have been? Whatever the reason, it continues to puzzle me.

Just to let you know I have both the movie and the book of Laura at home. That’s got to say something, right?

So, thus ends my noir movie rampage. Thank you Nova Ren Suma for writing Dani Noir and thank you Dani for suggesting all of these movies. It has been fun watching.

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17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma

It was on a snowy lane that Lauren first saw the poster about Abby Sinclair’s disappearance tacked to a pine tree. Soon after, she saw the ghost like appearance of Abby in the back seat of her van as she was on the day she disappeared. She was wearing a camp t-shirt, red shorts with white striping, had leaves in her hair and bruises on her knees. Although she lived in New Jersey, she was a counselor in training at a camp Pinecliff, New York. Abby was 17.

The next vision to appear was Fiona Burke. Fiona, nine years older than Lauren, used to babysit for her. She ran away, leaving Lauren in the Burke house by herself, locked in a closet. Fiona was never heard from again, but Lauren sees her and Fiona speaks to her. Fiona was 17 when she disappeared.

There’s Natalie, Shyann, Isabeth and Madison. All 17.

There are so many 17 year olds who disappear, either by running away or by being abducted and they are starting to make themselves visible to Lauren. But she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do about it. Then the dreams start.

I ended my 2013 reading with 17 & Gone, Nova Ren Suma’s latest (and I think best) YA novel, after Imaginary Girls and Dani Noir. It is absorbing. There is tension as Lauren interacts with these visions. There is concern for these poor girls. There is a surreal atmosphere to Lauren’s life, both real and imagined. There is a twist which I didn’t see coming. This will definitely make by 2013 Top 10 List.

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Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Imaginary Girls is Nova Ren Suma’s (Dani Noir) second novel. I’m finding it hard to explain what it’s about, so I’ll give you the beginning and maybe a few comments from the book flap. Fourteen year old Chloe idolizes her nineteen year old sister Ruby, as well she should. Ruby practically raised her. Ruby would do anything to protect her and is also proud of her. Swimming with friends one night down at the reservoir created to provide water for New York City, Ruby brags that Chloe can swim the  width of the reservoir and come back with a souvenir from Olive, the town that was drowned in order to create the reservoir. Halfway across, Chloe tires and as she loses strength, a rowboat magically appears. She grabs on and as she feels around the boat, she realizes there’s a body in it…a classmate, London.

That’s as much as I’m going to tell you.

On the back of the book jacket, Nancy Werlin calls is “A surreal little nightmare in book form.” Aimee Bender calls it “eerie and gripping…” The book flap says “…a masterfully distorted vision of family…” If this doesn’t have you totally confused…

Suffice it to say, Suma does a masterful job. I like the way she writes. It’s descriptive and literary. You can visualize the characters, the setting, the action. You constantly wonder what’s going to happen next. Yes, it is surreal. It is eerie. But I had to keep on reading.

For an out of the ordinary book, it’s Imaginary Girls.

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Noir Movies – Halfway Through

The Woman in the Window may have been my favorite noir movie so far…until the last 2 minutes, which in my opinion, ruined the noir tenor of the movie. Joan Bennett is the woman in the window…a portrait in the window next door to Edward G. Robinson’s men’s club. (Talk about one sultry femme fatale…although she really isn’t ‘fatale’ in the movie.) After dinner with his friends, the local district attorney and a doctor, Robinson is ruminating over the portrait in front of him when the model, Ms. Bennett appears. They chat, go out for drinks and before you know it, Robinson is back in her apartment. All is innocent but Bennett’s jealous lover, a prominent financier, unexpectedly enters and gets the wrong impression. He gets Robinson in a stranglehold and Robinson, to save himself, stabs and kills him. The rest of the movie is the cover up. Robinson’s friend, Raymond Massey, is the district attorney handling the case, so Robinson gets constant updates. There is suspense galore, dark, shadowy streets and alleyways and all three main characters are so well cast. If there was a way to give you a two minute warning, I would, so you could turn it off at the right time. However, you might as well watch the whole thing because 105 minutes of pleasure is worth the two minutes of pain. By the way, Joan Bennett will give Rita Hayworth a run for the money. And there is just something about Edward G. Robinson, isn’t there.

Now let’s move on to noir movie clunker number 2, after Touch of Evil . It is D.O.A. starring Edmund O’Brien. O’Brien, mysteriously decides to take a vacation in San Francisco. He stays at a hotel hosting a sales convention, goes partying with some salesmen, has a few too many and feels sick in the morning, but so sick he sees a doctor. After running tests, it’s determined that O’Brien was poisoned. O’Brien, an accountant in the movie, spends the rest of it trying to determine who poisoned him. From the dialogue to the action, this movie just didn’t make it. The storyline is convoluted. The love interest is uninteresting. And there certainly is no femme fatale. If you’re determined to see a movie entitled D.O.A., I suggest to see the 1988 movie with Randy Quaid. Although the story is different, the poisoning is the same and this one is a lot more suspenseful.

Since I’m halfway through the noir movies mentioned in Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma, it’s probably time for a recap. As far as femme fatales go, Rita Hayworth is certainly on top, with Joan Bennett a close second. There is no close or even distant third.

Regarding the movies, Gilda still remains on top with Lady from Shanghai and The Third Man battling head to head for second place. The Woman in the Window is trailing only because of the lame ending.

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New Books

Spent the day in Manhattan looking at the tree at Rockefeller Center and the store windows along Fifth Avenue. Also picked up my autographed copies of 17 & Gove by Nova Ren Suma and The Tortoise and the Hare by Jerry Pinkney from Books of Wonder. That place is a wonder. Plus they are collecting books for underprivileged children so drop by and buy a book for a kid who doesn’t have one. It’s the giving time of year.

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Noir Movies-Round Three

This is the weekend of duplicitous, murderous women: The Lady from Shanghai with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth and The Man Who Cheated Himself with Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt.

The Lady from Shanghai was a great noir movie with a totally ‘noir’ ending, although it didn’t have that dark, mysterious locale. The murder plotting takes some unpredictable turns. As in Gilda, Rita Hayworth is manipulative, alluring and wonderful. Orson Welles has changed his persona yet again from Touch of Evil and The Third Man. Now he’s seaman Michael ‘Black Irish’ O’Hara, with appropriate Irish brogue, who takes a job aboard Hayworth’s and her crippled husband’s yacht. In Touch of Evil, he was the bloated, misguided sheriff in a U.S./Mexico border town. In The Third Man he was the suave, confident black marketeer in Europe. I find it so hard to reconcile these Orson Welles images with the cigar smoking man who appeared on TV talk shows back in the day. Although I’m sure the other actors in The Lady from Shanghai were well known in their day, they were unknown to me, but they were cast superbly. This is a movie to watch.

I also liked The Man Who Cheated Himself with Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt. It was a totally different kind of movie. I thought they were both well cast, Cobb as the Detective in love with socialite Wyatt who ‘mistakenly?’ shoots her estranged husband and has Cobb clean up the mess. According to the blog Film Noir of the Week, however, Wyatt was not considered up to femme fatale standards, “Completely miscast as the object of Ed’s (Cobbs’) desire is Jane Wyatt. No perfect housewife Margaret Anderson is Ms Wyatt in her role as the femme fatale, Lois Frazer. Her performance can politely be called “over the top.” Some have referred to her performance as the worst ever by a femme fatale.” Personally, I thought she did a pretty decent job.

Suffice it to say, I’m in total agreement with Dani Callanzano of Dani Noir…the only real femme fatale so far is Rita Hayworth, in both Gilda and Lady from Shanghai. (However, please note that I do have 11 more movies to go, including Gene Tierney in Laura. She may give Rita Hayworth a run for her money.)

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Gilda with The Postman Always Rings Twice

So, the other night I watched the noir movie Gilda with Rita Hayworth and a very young Glenn Ford. It was one of the movies mentioned in the book Dani Noir (https://2headstogether.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/dani-noir-by-nova-ren-suma-2/) by Nova Ren Suma. I really enjoyed it. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Rita Hayworth movie. I could definitely watch more. And Glenn Ford was so young in it. They were both excellent and the on-screen chemistry was palpable. If Rita Hayworth isn’t the ultimate femme fatale, then no one is.

The movie definitely had that ‘noir’ feel to it from the dark, foggy Argentinian dockside beginning to the very end. However, the ending wasn’t noir-ish. I read another review which basically said the same thing–it called the ending a cop-out. I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to see if the movie ending was changed from the original story by E. A. Ellington.

If you are a noir movie fan, a pulp mystery fan, or merely a movie fan, Gilda is one movie that you should see. I’m contemplating adding it to my meager collection, that’s how good it is. Thank you Nova Ren Suma and Dani Noir for putting me on to these classics.

I watched The Postman Always Rings Twice (original great book by J. M. Cain) last night. It stars Lana Turner and John Garfield. Unlike Gilda, the movie setting isn’t dark, although the story is. The ending, however, is as noir-ish as you can get. Amazing. The only thing is: Lana Turner as a blonde doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t know why. As femme fatales go, Rita Hayworth beat her hands down. This is another great movie.

The next on my list is The Lady from Shanghai starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles.

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Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma

Kat Rosenfield, author of Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone (a great book, by the way) spoke to a group of YA librarians the other day (https://2headstogether.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/2-short-ones-from-two-heads-together/). Amelia Anne was her debut novel and although it’s been up for some awards, such as the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery, I’d still consider Ms. Rosenfield an ‘under the radar’ author. So, I asked her for some other under the radar authors and she recommended Nova Ren Suma, describing her as ‘literary’. Ms. Suma has written four books one of which is housed in our children’s area and the rest in Young Adult.

I started with her debut novel Dani Noir, the children’s book and will read them in order of publication. Although I probably wouldn’t classify it as ‘literary’, it was certainly well written and totally enjoyable. Danielle (Dani) Callanzano’s life is in turmoil. Her parents are recently divorced (after her father cheated on her mother). Her father is remarrying. Her mother is constantly crying and Dani can’t forgive her father.  She’s spending her summer at the Little Arts Theater in upstate Shanosha, NY watching Noir movies and envisioning her life as movie scenes, with Rita Hayworth as the femme fatale. Dani definitely has trust issues…if her father lied to her, who else is lying to her.

When Dani sees a girl with polka dot leggings leaving the theater projection booth (manned by Jackson, who is Dani’s friend Elissa’s boyfriend) Dani goes into noir mystery mode, trying to find out what the story is. Along the way, she learns a few things about herself, about friends, life and love.

Now, if you’ve learned anything about me from reading this blog it’s that I’m totally into pulp mysteries. (I found a few more anthologies to add to my collection. Some people, Susan, might call me obsessed.) And guess what…some of those pulp era mysteries (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Laura, The Postman Always Rings Twice) have been made into some of the best movies. So, not only did I read a fun book, but I came away with a list of 17 Noir movies I need to watch. (I’m starting out with Gilda (with Rita Hayworth) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (with Lana Turner). If these stars don’t qualify as femme fatales, I don’t know who would.)

I am totally looking forward to reading Ms. Suma’s second book, Imaginary Girls.

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