The Great Unwatched: The Stranger (1946)

Director: Orson Welles
Runtime: 95 minutes

Being married is a strange experience. Suddenly you have to justify a lot of things that you didn't even think about before. For instance, when I wanted to watch Orson Welles' The Stranger, there wasn't a question in my mind as to why -- a well-respected film-noir from one of the great directors? No problem. However, I'm having a stay-in weekend with my wife and so I had to pitch the movie to her. For her, a non-cinephile, the name Orson Welles meant little to nothing and the film's age was actually a strike against it. So I had to spin the plot (despite the fact that I haven't actually seen it) in such a way that it would intrigue her: a Nazi war criminal hiding out in small town America might get his cover blown by a wily investigator.

Of course, my story is true. What Professor Charles Rankin (Orson Welles) must tell his new wife isn't. Once upon a time, he was Franz Kindler, a Nazi war criminal who faked his own death and escaped to Harper, Connecticut. In this sleepy New England burg, he became Rankin, a history professor at a prestigious college. On the day he's set to wed Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), two new faces come to Harper who could expose him: an old compatriot, Konrad Meinike, and an investigator for the Allied forces, Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson). Rankin disposes of Konrad, but Mary holds the only piece of evidence connecting the two. Wilson, who doesn't know what Kindler looks like, suspects that Rankin is Kindler, but without Mary's cooperation, it's just that... suspicion. Rankin, meanwhile, begins spinning lies to Mary that fit the facts but not the truth, even as Wilson explains to her exactly to whom she is married. As the two stories battle in her head, Mary becomes increasingly unhinged, something that proves a danger to Rankin's cover and, by extension, to Mary's life.

Welles was reportedly dissatisfied with The Stranger; the final cut wasn't his. The released version eliminated both an extended chase sequence between Meinike and Wilson in the first act as well as the original screenplay's flashback structure. What's left is still an effective thriller, with Welles doing his survival-oriented villain bit, which he would later perfect in The Third Man (1949).^* My wife, who brings a unique perspective to elements I might otherwise overlook, noted that there was about 15% more melodrama than necessary. She's probably right, but after years of watching films from this era, I'm almost entirely accustomed to it. The best part of the film is, of course, the tense climax in the clock tower, as Wilson, Mary and Rankin/Kindler attempt to, ah, settle their differences. Welles uses intense close-ups, painted with cinematographer Russell Metty's brilliant shadow-work, to create a palpable sense of tension.

In short, I dig The Stranger quite a bit. My wife... was less enthused, but she did concede that it was "neat."

Worth the Purchase: It was a gift from a dear friend, but I would have gladly paid for it.

52 Perfect Movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950)

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

Among the most utterly enthralling 110 minutes you will ever spend watching a motion picture would be those you spent giving yourself up to Billy Wilder's masterful slice of film noir, Sunset Boulevard. From beginning to end, you are encapsulated within the sordid cocoon of the world created by Wilder and his co-screenwriters, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr., a faded Hollywood where dreams go to die and souls are lost like so much spare change.

William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who consents to rework the script of a secluded, highly eccentric, washed up silent film actress looking to make a comeback. Along the way, he becomes something of a "kept man", or gigolo for her, residing in her sad, dilapidated mansion with her and her mysterious butler, Max.

A movie star of middling status during the 1940s, Holden was catapulted to major celebrity and the heyday of his career thanks to Sunset Boulevard. Playing the character of Max is Austrian director-turned-actor Erich von Stroheim, who instills the part with a fascinating ambiguity suited to the bizarre secret he holds.

In the role of forgotten 1920s celebrity Norma Desmond is none other than actual 1920s leading lady Gloria Swanson, who won an Academy Award for her efforts, and rightfully so. An actor whose own path in life somewhat mirrored that of the character she played, Swanson brought a startling authenticity to the role.

As Norma Desmond, Swanson plays a woman so wrapped up in her own former glory that she literally loses herself within the alluring folds of vanity's cloak. She is delusional to the point of psychosis, carrying herself with a level of histrionics that belies her Silent Era roots. And although the character is decidedly over-the-top, that's entirely the point--Desmond has become a caricature of her former self. Much like Brando's Don Corleone, this is a role that has been often parodied, but if you strip away all that, you will find that it remains a raw and powerful performance.

All the elements of noir are in place, sucking the helpless viewer further and further in as the tale unfolds. We have Joe's hard-boiled narration, delivered despite the fact that he is already dead in the film's opening scene. There's the picture's hardened cynical presentation of life and love, both made into mockeries by the harshness of reality. Sexuality is dealt with in a fashion that was quite frank for the time--a fact that led some better-known actors to turn down the part prior to Holden's casting.

The noir phenomenon in American film had been gradually fermenting over the course of the 1940s, and this film represents something of a high watermark for the subgenre. Like a pulp novel come to life, Sunset Boulevard is brimming with unforgettable dialogue and sharply drawn characters. It's also shot with brooding brilliance by John F. Seitz, a cinematographer whose roots stretched back to the earliest days of feature films. He helps undeniably to cement the film's stylized quality with a keen sense of light, and most importantly, shadow.

One of the true auteurs of the golden age of cinema, Wilder is at his very best here, in what is arguably his finest hour. An Eastern European transplant who broke into Hollywood as a screenwriter in the 1930s, had made a name for himself as a director in the '40s with films like Double Indemnity (1944) and The Lost Weekend (1945), and would later distinguish himself with an astounding string of classics that includes Sabrina (1954), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). Although nominated for Sunset Boulevard as both a director and writer, it would ironically be for his script that he won.

And what a script it is. One of the hallmarks of film noir is the importance placed on clever, fast-paced dialogue, and this film has it in spades. The twisted relationship of Joe and Norma is at the center of all the goings-on, and naturally, the scenes Holden and Swanson share are the highlights of the film.

Sunset Boulevard is the kind of film that stays with you. It's the kind of film that makes you forget everything while it's playing, makes you sit perfectly still in rapt attention, and as the credits roll after the gut-punch finale, makes you sit back and say, "That was one hell of a movie." Ready for a "close-up" that will never happen, the delusional Desmond waltzes towards us, her self-fabricated world in shambles, as we look on--dazed, spent, shaken to our core.

One hell of a movie.

NEXT UP: Scrooge (1951)

The Great Unwatched: The Deadly Bees (1967) and Out of the Past (1947)

Out of the Past (1947)

Director: Jacques Tourneur
Runtime: 97 minutes

As the credits came up on Out of the Past, I thought to myself, "I have never seen a film-noir before this; I only thought that I had." This thought is particularly amusing, because as Tourneur's movie opened -- and despite the title card -- I thought that I'd put the wrong disc in the player.

Let me explain. Out of the Past has a reputation as one of the great film-noirs, a genre known for their oppressive cityscapes and chiaroscuro lighting. Tourneur's past work with Val Lewton's horror unit demonstrates that he has a way with shadowy cinematography. So it's a shock when the first sights we see in Out of the Past are open plains, the first sounds a slightly rustic musical cue. One of the credits notes that the film is based on a novel called "Build My Gallows High." When we finally see a hard-top car driving along the country road, it's a relief -- this is not a Western after all.

Of course, this is the genius of Out of the Past. It's a film that seems to define the film-noir experience, but it wouldn't work without the film-noir tropes already established by earlier films. One of the key elements of great film-noir is that those elongated shadows and endlessly criss-crossing city streets form a prison around the protagonist, locking them into the date with destiny they made when they gave in to their passion. Opening on a sun-bathed rural community is a calculated surprise; it drives the mystery before a single word is spoken. Why are we here and not the city? What is coming out of the past? The Western associations also work in Tourneur's favor. That car that drives up the road is both welcome (because it's a clue we're in the movie we expected to be) and strange (its dark color makes it look like an unwelcome invader of this dusty village).

The man in the car is looking for Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), the local gas station owner who used to be another person entirely -- Jeff Markham, private eye. Their meeting begins Out of the Past's descent into darkness, as night and shadow creep into the tale (both metaphorically and visually) with alarming speed. Markham became Bailey to hide from a big-shot named Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Why he went into hiding is a story he tells his girl during the drive to Sterling's lodge, with the requisite flashback and narration. Why he needed to hide comprises the rest of the movie.

My original summary of the film isn't accurate; it's not that I hadn't seen a film-noir before, it's that I'd never seen a film-noir protagonist before. How could there be any other except Robert Mitchum? The rest, even his predecessors, seem like pale imitations, shadows if you will. Hard-bitten doesn't begin to describe him. When he breathes, "Baby, I don't care" to Jane Greer, you know that he goddamn means it. He has a way with conveying emotion that's guarded and revealing all at once. When his deaf station assistant tells him he has a visitor, his face barely moves, but his expression changes all the same. It's a masterpiece of performance.

Worth the Purchase? Oh definitely.

The Deadly Bees (1967)

Director: Freddie Francis
Runtime: 83 minutes

This one's a bit of a cheat, as I'd seen a truncated version of The Deadly Bees once in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. A lack of wisecracking robots does this film no favors, unfortunately. It's slow, repetitive, and silly. A pop star (Suzanna Leigh) goes to a remote island to recuperate from a nervous breakdown, only to be caught in a hive of villainy -- one of the island's two beekeepers is releasing a new strain of killer bees on the unsuspecting populace. Is it cold, forceful Guy Doleman or the doddering, avuncular Frank Finlay? Does the audience care? Notable mainly for a strong performance from that ubiquitous supporting player of British horror, Michael Ripper, as the local barkeeper/lawman.

Worth the Purchase? I should've been stingier with my money.

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In Two Weeks: Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Movie Cities I Love: Vienna in The Third Man (1949)

After a showing of Wolverine on Saturday (no great shakes -- Hugh Jackman is charismatic as always, but the plot made very little sense), my girlfriend had to run an errand, so she left me at Barnes and Noble to wait. It probably wouldn't have been her first choice, since I have a tendency to tarry excessively in any shop with a DVD section, but there's not much she could do about it. By the time she came to pick me up, I had worked myself into a properly self-righteous froth about the store's ghettoization of the horror genre -- stuck in an out-of-the-way corner next to the bargain discs. Such tyranny would not stand!

Well, okay, it would stand, but I would shove it lightly in hopes that it had a severe inner ear condition.

Anyway, as we walked out, my chagrin turned to joy when I spied the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of The Third Man. Now, ask me what my favorite film of all time is and the answer will vary from day to day, but lately it's been a pretty solid 50/50 split between Carol Reed's mystery-thriller and His Girl Friday (1940).

Of course, I've been on a "DVD diet" lately, curtailing my propensity to add to my gargantuan movie collection. Plus, I already owned the older Criterion disc. There had to be a way around this, of course. "It's okay to buy the Blu-ray of a movie I already own if it's my favorite movie of all time right?" I asked my girlfriend. My girlfriend, in her infinite wisdom, shrugged, knowing full well that if I was set on talking myself into this, I would do it no matter what she said.

Which brings us to the body of this post. I did, in fact, buy the Blu-ray and while it's not as impressive an upgrade as I'd hoped, I still fell in love with post-war Vienna, the real "third man", all over again. The beautiful architecture, the cobblestone streets, the very climbable piles of rubble, the narrow passages just perfect for the manipulation of shadows and light -- all of these make the Vienna of The Third Man one of my favorite movie cities.