The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4

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MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

    With 10 timeless suspense thrillers on 5 DVDs, this collection's chock-full of dark nights, seedy back alleys and shady characters! Includes Act of Violence (Van Heflin. 1948/82 min.), Mystery Street (Ricardo Montalban. 1950/93 min.), Crime Wave (Sterling Hayden. 1954/73 min.), Decoy (Jean Gillie. 1946/76 min.), They Live by Night (Cathy O'Donnell. 1948/95 min.), Side Street (Farley Granger. 1950/83 min.), Where Danger Lives (Robert Mitchum. 1950/82 min.), Tension (Richard Basehart. 1950/95 min.), Illegal (Edward G. Robinson. 1955/88 min.), and The Big Steal (Robert Mitchum. 1949/71 min.). 5 DVDs. B&w/NR/fullscreen.

DVD FEATURES:
  • Region: 1
  • Number of Discs: 5
  • Subtitle: Fre
  • Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
  • Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 (Alternate Wide Screen)
  • Features:
    • Commentaries and featurettes on all titles
AWARDS
  • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  •     Nominated Best Story - 1950 (Leonard Spigelgass)
  • Telluride Film Festival
  •     Film Presented - 1984
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
REVIEWS:
  • A premiere purveyor of high-strung anguish and jittery visual panache, Nicholas Ray filled his 1949 directorial debut with the wrenching emotion, fateful violence, and stylistic flair that would mark his most famous films, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Johnny Guitar (1954). Adapted from Edward Anderson's novel Thieves Like Us and starring sweet-faced Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell, the film presents a compassionate view of 1930s outlaws in love. Unlike the neurotic duo of Gun Crazy (1949) or the sexy rogues of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Bowie and Keechie are innocents doomed by circumstances. From the trail-blazing use of helicopter shots to claustrophobic close-ups and a bank robbery shot from inside the getaway car, Ray maintains the tension of the couple's flight from the law, while the noir-shadowed nightworld underlines the hopelessness of their plight. Little noticed in 1949, but championed, along with Ray in general, by the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinema, They Live By Night stands as a vital predecessor to both Bonnie and Clyde and Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965); it was also reinterpreted by Robert Altman in 1974 under the novel's original title, Thieves Like Us. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
  • An overlooked little film noir gem, Side Street falls short of being a classic but is a small delight for fans of crime films, especially those with a pseudo-Hitchcockian touch to them. Side Street could benefit from a stronger screenplay; it gets a bit convoluted in places, and the motivations are occasionally a bit contrived. But the general situation is good, and the third person narration (unusual for noir, which prefers to be self-narrated by the protagonist) is used to very nice advantage. In the lead, Farley Granger is good, if not exceptional; he hits all the right buttons but doesn't press any that really surprise. Cathy O'Donnell is a bit bland (in an admittedly under-written role), but the supporting cast is aces, with Jean Hagen considerably more than that. Street's biggest assets, however, are its direction and cinematography, which play off of each other brilliantly. Anthony Mann's sure hand keeps the story taut and gripping, and Joseph Ruttenberg's camerawork is nothing short of stunning. Unlike many other examples of the genre, the cinematography doesn't emphasize expressionistic lighting. Instead, things start off on a perfectly normal note, and it is only as Granger begins to contemplate a crime that the photography begins to take on atmospheric tinges. The film climaxes with a marvelous and exciting car chase that utilizes overhead shots down narrow alleys to very good effect; indeed, this sequence alone is worth the price of admission. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
  • Arguably Zinnemann's most underrated film, this harrowing noir is a vivid evocation of survivor's guilt directed by a man who had lost much of his family in the death camps. Unlike most noirs, which open with its protagonists in desperate straits, the film derives much of its power from the contractor's gradual descent from a seemingly normal life into a perverse nightmare realm. While the highly improbable plot is a bit baroque for straight drama, and the character of Joe is less a human being than a projection of Frank's guilty conscience, the elements still mesh beautifully in the service of the film's tough-talking expressionism. In one unforgettably corrosive and spectacularly photographed sequence, Frank careens wildly through downtown L.A., ending up in a dive where he finds himself taking advice from a well-worn hooker (Mary Astor) and her hitman friend (Berry Kroeger). Heflin mixes fear, confusion, and desperation in a typically multi-layered performance, and Ryan is disturbing as the obsessive, embittered cripple, but it's Astor's rock-hard yet bizarrely compassionate prostitute than lingers in the mind. Even better is the rich chiaroscuro of Robert Surtees' camera work, in which shadows slice bodies and cover faces until, like the contractor, we no longer have the vaguest idea where we are. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
  • Edward G. Robinson returned to Warner Bros. after a 12-year absence and the studio dusted off an antique courtroom melodrama, The Mouthpiece (1932), which had already enjoyed a second airing back in 1940 as The Man Who Talked Too Much. Robinson, needless to say, is his usual dependable self as the District Attorney turned mob lawyer, but Illegal has a hard time deciding whether to be a crime thriller or a sly comedy. Considering the improbable judicial antics at display, it should have stuck to the latter. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
  • For a film noir, The Big Steal is surprisingly light. Unlike noirs such as The Big Sleep, which lace the darker proceedings with plenty of humor, Steal is fairly amusing all the way through. The setup and the stakes are serious, but the execution, even at its most action-packed, is handled with a sense of humor. Those looking for typical noir existentialism will be disappointed, but most will find themselves drawn in by Steal's charm. Certainly, the cast deserves a great deal of credit for the film's success. Robert Mitchum is in especially fine form, mining the energy that lies beneath his laid-back, world weary demeanor to very good effect. Jane Greer is a perfect foil for him, and the two also have an undeniable chemistry that adds to Steal's power. William Bendix is also showcased well here, but it's Ramon Novarro who delivers the film's most enjoyable performance. Don Siegel's direction is all about pacing, which is all to the good in this instance, and he's aided by some exceptionally crisp editing. If The Big Steal falls short of classic status, it's because it's ultimately a caper film without a lot of depth to it; but if it's little more than one long chase, it's still an entertaining ride. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
  • John Sturges's Mystery Street may not have been the first movie to delve into forensic pathology, but it was the first Hollywood film to use it as the basis for a crime story set in postwar America. In that sense, it's the not-too-distant forerunner to CSI, CSI: Miami, Cold Case Files, Quincy, M.E., etc., and on that level alone should appeal to modern audiences. But it's also got a topical element that's just as relevant in 2006 as it was in 1950 -- the character of Lt. Morales, as portrayed by Ricardo Montalban, runs into some not-so-subtle prejudice over his accent and the fact that he wasn't necessarily born in the United States; it gets especially vicious when he's dealing with Harkley (Edmon Ryan), an upper-crust potential suspect from Boston's old-money society. And in addition to that element of the plot, there's an entirely separate and equally appealing aspect to the movie in Elsa Lanchester's portrayal of Mrs. Smerrling; a twitchy, neurotic, grasping woman, she's one of the nuttiest roles ever essayed by Lanchester, and she almost steals the movie, as a soft-spoken loony who can't resist thrusting herself into the life (or death) of one of her tenants. Add to that the superb photography by John Alton (including lots of location shooting) and a fine score, plus a brace of excellent supporting performances (especially by Marshall Thompson and Sally Forrest as a couple victimized by circumstance), and the movie is an enduring winner of a thriller -- in 1950 and well into the 21st century. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
  • One of the most hardboiled of major-studio B-pictures, Andre De Toth's Crime Wave (1954) was an important precursor to (if not a direct influence on) Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). In addition to De Toth's superb handling of the action sequences and dialogue, the picture has at its core a brace of superb performances, led by Gene Nelson as a totally victimized innocent, and Phyllis Kirk in a very restrained performance as his wife; and Ted de Corsia, Charles Buchinksy (aka Bronson), and Timothy Carey as three of the most quietly scary sociopaths ever to grace a major studio crime movie up to that time. (It's no accident that two of them, de Corsia and Carey, ended up in Kubrick's movie.) The script by Bernard Gordon -- who was blacklisted soon after Crime Wave went into production -- is also brilliant, filled with subtle shades of gray in the characterizations, as well as a forward momentum that, as handled by De Toth, never lags or wavers. The characters are also fully and richly developed, even down to the supporting figures such as the ex-con veterinarian (played by Jay Novello), and they are given complexities that surprise the audience. But the most interesting of all the roles is the one played by Sterling Hayden. As a character working on the right side of the law, he's nearly as scary as he is portraying a hood; his Detective Sgt. Sims is a bundle of screen energy, a frustrated chain smoker forced to chew toothpicks who has multiple axes to grind with the criminal element and doesn't even respect his fellow enforcement officials, such as Steve Lacey's parole officer (James Bell). Gordon's script and Hayden's portrayal make Sims nearly as menacing as the men he pursues, and he ended up as the lead in Kubrick's movie; but Gordon's script also knows exactly where to draw the line and De Toth to allow Hayden to reveal -- at just the right moment and totally convincingly -- Sims' one streak of humanity. The result is a 74-minute movie with more to say -- and more excitement to generate saying it -- than a lot of two-hour-plus epics, and it's just a shame that Gordon never had a chance to follow up what he could do in this genre at the time. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
  • Tension holds up extremely well as an unusual (if not exactly rare) example of film noir from MGM. Its virtues mostly lie in the work of director John Berry and the cast, especially Richard Basehart in a difficult leading role, as a man pushed right to the edge, but not permanently or lastingly crossing over into homicidal rage. He's convincing enough in every aspect of the role, yet sympathetic enough to bring this off; meanwhile, Audrey Totter, as his slutty wife, is downright sinister and sadistic from the get-go, and therein lies the only real flaw in the foundation of the movie. Even allowing for the notion that their marital union took place in the wake of the Second World War, amid a lot of relief and also lots of personal dislocation, one has to wonder how these two characters ever came to be married, and what each ever could possibly have seen in the other? But beyond that, they're just fine in the parts as written, with Totter as manipulative as any of Don Siegel's most notorious leading ladies (Faith Domergue in The Duel at Silver Creek, Angie Dickinson in The Killers) and, indeed, playing the diametric opposite of the loyal and loving spouse that she portrayed in Robert Wise's The Set-Up that very same year. Berry also does a superb job of juggling the other elements, especially the two police detectives played by Barry Sullivan and William Conrad, with some highly realistic and beguiling bits of business between them as they go through their investigation. The only flaw in the details of the execution is the score by Andre Previn; Previn would later write some good jazz material and establish himself as a classical composer as an adjunct to his conducting career, but the music here is little better than hack work, following conventions to such a degree that every cue is practically telegraphed in advance. Watching it more than a half century on, one can marvel at how well the movie still holds together in all the right places, which is 90 percent of it -- Berry and cinematographer Harry Stradling even working some of Cyd Charisse's dancing and athletic abilities into one scene that plays comically but proves key to the plot a half-hour later -- but one also wishes that the MGM music department would have assigned a composer such as Miklos Rozsa to do the scoring on Tension. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
  • Where Danger Lives is a sometimes fascinating, sometimes annoying film noir that is well worth seeing, especially for devotees of this genre. Although it is uneven, when it works, Danger is totally captivating. Several things keep Danger from being the total success that it should have been. Chief among these is the casting of Howard Hughes' "discovery" Faith Domergue in the absolutely crucial role of the deranged femme fatale. The part calls for a woman with the kind of looks that grab a man by the eyeballs and won't let him go, and this Domergue has. But it also calls for an actress, someone who can play complicated scenes and who knows that there is nuance in everything, even scenes of intense drama, and here the actress is sorely lacking. The other flaws in the film come in Charles Bennett's screenplay, which stretches credibility in several places, brings in some attempted lightness at inappropriate times and doesn't make Robert Mitchum's character's action believable enough. However, Bennett balances this with some searingly intense sequences, some great explorations of noir themes and a journey into hell that is quite effective. Credit John Farrow's muscular, commanding direction with playing down the flaws and emphasizing the assets, especially in terms of the impending doom that grows stronger as the film goes along. He's aided by Nick Musuraca's explosively moody cinematography, which is invaluable. Mitchum is cast againt stype, but he plays the part extremely well, and Claude Rains in a small role is magnificent. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

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