A friend and I both have this habit of picking up other people’s stray books, starting to read, and then forgetting where we are. One day, that friend picked up mine, Don DeLillo’s White Noise. I waited for her reaction, wondering if she’d be as overcome by it as I had been. After a pause in reading, she looked up at me and said, “This is literature.”
I always think of that moment when I’m reading or watching something and am stunned by its brilliance. That stirring of excitement is what I felt just a few minutes into The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
I wasn’t even sure beforehand I’d like the movie. Horror is not my usual. I’d heard of the film and was curious. But I will admit to some fear that whatever special effects it managed in 1920s terms would be too silly for the story to frighten a 2020s audience.
What I didn’t count on, of course, were the joys of German Expressionism. I didn’t even know the intriguing Nosferatu was part of the same movement. The exaggerated, fanciful staging, set design, lighting, camera angles, use of shadows and makeup of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari take the film into the world of fairy tale. Because there is no attempt to make anything look “real,” the film quickly joins the terrain of nightmare. (One hundred years don’t really make a difference when it comes to nightmares.) Most say the film is either influenced by or a direct commentary on WWII, which explains much of the plot and the traumatized state of its leads.
I’ll share just the basics so that I don’t spoil its considerable suspense. (Side note: What is that AMAZING font on the title cards throughout? I want to use it for everything!!)
The acting begins with an older man sharing his ghostly encounters with a young man, Franzis (Friedrich Feher), who says he and his fiancée (Jane Olsen). have their own terrifying tale to tell. She walks by trancelike in white, like she’s straight of casting for Ophelia.
Franzis then brings up a mysterious “him” from his past, who appears in his own little shot, looking extremely creepy (with his hair dyed black and white on top, skunk style). This “him” navigates a gorgeous setting of crooked street drawings. Him, of course, is Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss).
The frame quickly dissolves into a scene of a new character, whom we’ll soon learn is Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), overjoyed about his town’s fair. He goes to Franzis’s place to convince him to join. Franzis is clearly a pre-traumatized, lighter, and happier version of the man we met in the opening scene. Meanwhile, Dr. Caligari is trying to get a permit for the same event.
We soon discover Dr. Caligari’s act will involve a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). As Act II begins, we learn there’s been a murder in the town. I won’t share any more of the plot.
The film is beautiful. Whether the story is using a painted set or a constructed one — and this film uses both — each set is a haunting piece of artwork. The framing of every shot is striking. (I wouldn’t recommend anyone experiencing vertigo watch this film. The oddly angled everything can make you feel a bit off even on the most balanced of days.) Surely, every haunted house created in every town since owes a debt to this film.
Dr. Caligari makes you wonder what you’re seeing and not, explores the nature of sanity and authority and otherwise makes you feel ill at ease and worried for its characters. It also keeps you reflecting on its messaging and incredible artistry long afterward. I enjoyed the acting, especially Veidt’s as Cesare and, of course, Krauss, who just owns this role. But EVERYTHING is good about this film. Never with any other scary movie have I wanted to freeze every frame, just to examine how each touch builds toward this symphony of mood building.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I envy your first encounter.
Oh Jeff, I get why you fell for Kathie (Jane Greer). That sexy voice, her air of mystery, those all-white get-ups, vacation drinks, and her nonchalant response to your chase. You really had no hope, did you? Especially once she started toweling you off from the rain.
Yeah, you were a goner, my friend. That was a given.
But I give you credit. You saw her shoot your former partner and realized too much siren for me. You viewed her clearly after that. When your new, sweeter lady love defended her by saying, “She can’t be all bad. No one is,” you (justifiably) answered, “She comes the closest.”
You are right that you were a chump, falling for a homicidal moll’s lies, but honey, in the world of noir suckers, you are Albert Einstein. You learned. You improved your life and your dating judgment (a lot of us don’t make it that far).
Problem is, my friend, you need to work on your shadiness. The detective career is not one in which fisticuffs save you from a bent former partner. You don’t have to kill, but you must learn some trickery and bluffing. To be honest, I’m not sure how you’ve remained above ground this long. I might not approve of Kathie’s answer, but I understand why she thought your self-defense inadequate.
You said it yourself when Ann’s wannabe boyfriend threatened, “I was going to kill you.” You quipped, “Who isn’t?” In those two words, you captured the gumshoe life, in which craftiness and sketchiness are survival requisites.
Luckily, you do have a key asset, Jeff. You are a planner. I need you to remember that neither Whit, nor Kathie, nor any of the henchmen involved have this basic quality. They live on spur-of-the-moment, unerringly bad decision making.
Let’s take your nemesis, Whit. He hired you, a ridiculously attractive man with sleepy eyes and a sultry voice, to retrieve his already traitorous girlfriend. (As my sister says, “That’s like sending Cindy Crawford to get your boyfriend.”)
You soon discovered she was a viper, didn’t you? Whit did too. She’d already nearly killed him. So what did he do when he discovered all the additional murderous shenanigans she’d been up to? He forced this woman into a corner, thinking what? She’d say, “Okay, honey. Off to jail I go”?
I know he looked like he was intelligent, Jeff. But he really wasn’t. And his surviving buddies are even dumber. They just outnumbered you with this tax killing plot. They didn’t — in any way — outsmart you.
Why then, Jeff, after some unlucky moves and bad timing, have you let the fatalism get to you? When Kathie said, “Let’s get out of here” after killing Whit, what did you mean by asking, “There’s someplace left to go?”
Of course there is, Jeff! You surely can double-cross a sociopath with no impulse control. This is no Phyllis Dietrichson, my friend. She’s not going to out-connive you. And do you honestly have a problem setting her up for the three killings she is either solely or jointly responsible for? Is calling the police so that you and she will die in a shootout a more ethical plan? Do you think any of the henchmen left care enough about Whit’s honor or have brains enough between them to hunt you down?
I know you think you can’t escape your past — that once you get into bed (in your case, literally) with evil, you don’t have a shot unless you go full-scale monstrous yourself and outsmart them all, Red Harvest (or its imitator, Miller’s Crossing)-style. And you’re too good of a person to go that route.
But do you need to? Most of your enemies are dead. Your fate is not as determined as you think. Your odds are far better than Kathie’s were in her gambling efforts in Acapulco. Her fingerprints are all over that home, and angel face or not, she is a gun-loving gangster’s moll (in a terribly sexist age), which doesn’t make for the best defense.
I know this is the noir way, Jeff: You must play the man defeated. You must see killing her (even indirectly) as the only escape from her wiles and the only protection for the woman and friend you love. I get it, Jeff. It makes for a good movie.
But you said it yourself, Jeff: “There’s a way to lose more slowly.”
And in this case, you actually had a chance to win.
Laura is a curious film. I always think of it as the male gaze on steroids, as we know so little of the heroine apart from the versions we get from the men who surround her: the portrait artist, the boyfriend, the best friend and the cop. All are obsessed with her, and all want their version of the murdered heroine to supersede the others.’
That’s why I chose the film for A Haunting Blogathon: In the Afterlife, hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association. Crime writer James Ellroy once said something about Laura being the ultimate film for cops, and I think he’s right: the victim you only learn of from diaries, from photos, from others’ words. You never quite know who she was.
Surely, it would be easy for those driven to solve a homicide (especially one that remains out of reach) to become possessive about what they know and haunted by what they don’t. (Ellroy, whose mother was murdered, explores his own haunting in My Dark Places, a fascinating read, as is the book that inspired him: Joseph Wambaugh’s true-crime masterpiece, TheOnion Field.)
It’s not hard to imagine becoming enamored with and fascinated by a victim who looks like Gene Tierney. In this particular story, however, the hauntings turn from reasonable to pathological.
What I love about the film is that the versions of Laura these men (and one woman) tell don’t quite add up. Her housekeeper, Bessie (Dorothy Adams), describes Laura as the sweetest lady on earth, and certainly Gene Tierney’s perfect face and that sentimental theme song seem to confirm those impressions.
But would such an angel be best friends with Waldo Lydecker, enjoying his poisonous remarks about her admirer and fellow party guests, as we see her do (in his version of her story, of course)?
Is she really a woman who, as fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) claims, will indulge any visitor, day or night? He has treated his bride-to-be like a doormat. Since he wants to continue to do so, this tenderhearted version of Laura is convenient for him. But Laura does, in fact, dump him, and despite occasional remarks seems little affected by the poor woman (cheater or not) who got killed in her doorway. Not exactly the heart-on-her-sleeve, always-forgiving softie he takes her for.
Of course, Lydecker isn’t wrong in accusing Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), Laura’s most recent admirer, of being a creep. McPherson wants to buy a portrait of her when she’s dead and becomes instantly possessive of her after she returns to life.
Who instantly hits on a stranger (worse than that, assumes she’s already his) while she’s still in shock?
Even if she is vulnerable enough to think she’s in love too, it would be wise and kind to wait–I dunno–48 hours? He also chooses for the moment of his wooing a party during which the following things are happening to his new love:
Her fiancé has basically just said to her, “Yeah, I know you killed my lover, and that’s cool,” after inviting said lover into Laura’s home and into her clothes during the latter’s wedding week.
Someone has just been murdered in Laura’s home, and this cop/admirer has invited people over to it for a gathering before she’d had time to sage it, obsessively clean it, or call a real estate agent to put it on the market.
Her aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), has confessed–casually, I might add–that she’s toyed with murdering Laura herself.
And oh yeah, our heroine is still in grave danger from the best friend who tried to off her.
Our infatuated cop follows up this uproariously fun party by pretending he’s arresting her, ruining her reputation in front of her friends, because he can’t control his feelings without taking her into the police station. Ummm, what?
McPherson is right that Laura has surrounded herself by “dopes”–if by dopes he means a heartless group of friends and lovers, with some sociopathy in the mix. He’s just wrong not to include himself in the description. Andrews is quite handsome and feigns calm (with his trusty toy), so it’s easy to think of this detective as the hero in the beginning, but that impression soon wanes.
Right after returning home and shocking Bessie, Laura says gently, “I’m not a ghost, really,” and then jokes, “Have you ever heard a ghost ask for eggs?” But her claims ring hollow. Though she’s physically in the room, I would argue Laura still is a ghost through no fault of her own. Real/imagined impressions of her haunt her admirers and herself.
Actual men are also looming in her life, refusing to let her be who she wants to be, love whom she wants to love, or take five minutes to recover from life-altering trauma. And then there’s the method her best friend chose to kill her with: buckshot (interesting that Waldo doesn’t even reconsider that method during his second attempt). It’s not bad enough he wants to kill her. He wants to obliterate her.
If I were Laura’s true friend (or her therapist), I’d say, “Hey, honey. It time to hightail it out of town. A transfer overseas would be ideal. Also, you may want to keep that phone number unlisted.”
Episode 2 of the femme fatales season of Nobody Knows Anything is up!! Dangerous Liaisons, a film that pits the dueling wits of Glenn Close and John Malkovitch against each other in a fight over love and power . . . . and also, Keanu Reeves is there, being strangely perfect in eighteenth-century dress. We ask this critical question: Can the femme fatale ever win? (Just why Close didn’t get the Oscar for this is a big mystery.)
My new podcast season on femme fatales with Brian Wilkins and Michael Gutierrez releases today, and we begin with one of my favorite films, Leave Her to Heaven.
We chat about the strange canoe launch that begins the film, Tierney’s impossible beauty, the unfathomable hero–who wanted to marry this brilliant, fascinating beauty but never share her bed–and her troubling response to that marital issue. Join us here!
I love a good casting against type. That’s why Scottie in Vertigo is so disarming: It’s creepy to find America’s aw-shucks sweetheart, Jimmy Stewart, playing a villain.
Of course, not all of Stewart’s parts are sugary; he was a murderer in The Thin Man series. He was a professor with disturbing philosophical beliefs in Rope. But Stewart plays innocence beautifully and so memorably—as in his iconic performance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or in his role opposite an imagined rabbit in Harvey. It’s in these parts—and as the lovely George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life—that Stewart makes the most enduring impression on viewers.
That’s why when Scottie begins to act unhinged in Vertigo, the audience gives him the benefit of the doubt, and can understand why his loves do too.
He’s just in grief, we think. It must be awful to blame yourself for your coworker’s death.
He’s just experiencing PTSD.
I know he must be a good guy…He’s George Bailey!
Scottie seems to be a good guy at first. He’s a charming, funny friend to Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), who secretly loves him. He’s willing to help desperate college friend, Gavin (Tom Helmore). Gavin claims his wife, Madeleine, is possessed by a sad ghost and employs Scottie to trail and protect her from self-harm.
But right away, Scottie’s actions are suspect. He falls for Gavin’s wife. I mean, it’s hard to blame him. Look at her entrance:
She somehow looks even better in a rather drab grey suit:
Still, Scottie didn’t have to act on his attraction. He breaches friendship and professional ethics by hitting on Madeleine. Knowing—as we viewers do by the end—that Gavin planned it that way doesn’t change anything.
For a brief moment, Scottie and Madeleine seem to enjoy each other’s company, but the happiness is short lived.
Soon, things go terribly wrong for Scottie. Madeleine leads Scottie to a tower. His vertigo prevents him from following her, and he thinks he sees her leap to her death. What he really sees is the real Madeleine (whom he never met) thrown from a tower, while fake Madeleine, whom he’s been trailing (Novak), hides until he leaves.
Once Scottie loses fake-Madeleine to supposed suicide, we’ve forgiven him for any bad behavior. After all, look at his despair!
It’s what he does with that despair that makes Scottie a villain.
First, he follows a strange woman, Judy, to her apartment door.
Let’s start there. Stalking a woman because she looks like your lost love is deranged. Her hostile response to his knock is valid—even if she weren’t the fake Madeleine we know her to be.
Of course, Judy is hardly innocent. She was involved in a murder plot that ruined Scottie’s life. Despite her complicity, we feel for her. She’s so remorseful and almost as self-destructive as pretend Madeleine: who after such a perfect crime falls for her own mark? (Gavin would have killed her had he thought her capable of it.)
And Scottie? Had Scottie believed Judy guilty, his cruel behavior toward her would be somewhat justified. But Scottie believes her innocent. He’s an emotionally abusive boyfriend who feels ZERO guilt for expecting irrational sacrifices from his lover.
His next disturbing act post-stalking is to force Judy to wear the same grey suit as his dead love. When Judy realizes what he’s doing, she protests.
His justification for distressing her is jaw-droppingly awful: “Judy, Judy, it can’t make that much difference to you…. Judy, do this for me.”
I admit. I laughed aloud when I heard these words this time around. Can’t make any difference to YOU, what you wear? Yeah, nothing personal there.
“I don’t like it,” she says of the suit he offers her.
“We’ll take it,” he responds to the saleswoman.
Judy responds by laying her head on a desk in misery. Scottie’s answer? Ply her with liquor.
She asks why he’s terrorizing her and threatens to leave but fears he wouldn’t let her. Sadly, she wouldn’t leave anyway: she wants to remain with her abuser.
This is when we wish Judy’s friends from an earlier scene would return.
RUN, HONEY. RUN!!!!!!
Scottie then says his last few days with her (and yes, he starts on this nonsense just DAYS after they get together) are the first happy ones in a year.
She says that’s only because she reminds him of his dead love. What, besides that, does he like about her?
He replies, “It’s you too. There’s something in you that…” He starts to touch her, then WALKS AWAY without finishing the thought. Because she’s right: he only likes her for her resemblance to Madeleine.
“You don’t even want to touch me,” she says.
“Yes, yes I do.”
Let it be said that there’s no evidence to back his words.
“Couldn’t you like me, just me, the way I am?” Judy cries.
Now this is some heartbreaking stuff. But it gets worse:
“When we first started out,” Judy says, “it was so good, w-we had fun. And then you started in on the clothes, well, I’ll wear the darn clothes, if you want me too, if, if you’ll just, just like me.”
What is his response to this pathetic concession?
“The color of your hair.”
Because of course, he wants to change her brown hair into Madeleine’s blonde locks too.
“Oh no!” she says and walks away.
“Judy, please, it can’t matter to you.”
Again, as a woman, I must say, the color of one’s hair is QUITE PERSONAL.
But Judy is now ignoring red flags as tall as the sequoias she visited with him (while acting as Madeleine): “If…If I let you change me, will that do it? If I do what you tell me, will you love me?”
“Yes, yes,” he says.
“Then I’ll do it. I don’t care anymore about me.”
Her sad words don’t worry him, or even make him feel remorse. Because she caved to his senseless demands, he is finally affectionate, nuzzling her, “Here, go on, let’s sit by the fire,” and he takes out a cushion for her.
And so Judy makes the full transformation into his lost love for him.
We hear the elevator after the full makeover, watch her move toward him. She enters the room without a word, hesitant. She’s afraid. She puts her purse down.
“Well?” she says, turning toward him.
It’s clear that Judy is expressing one tiny rebellion, one last trace of self-respect. She comes back with her hair down, not up, like Madeleine’s. In every other way, she’s the dead woman’s twin.
“It should be back from your face and pinned at the neck,” says Scottie, “I told her [the beautician] that, I told you that.”
Wow.
“We tried it. It just didn’t seem to suit me,” she says, combing her hair nervously.
He grabs her hair.
She turns to face him.
“Please, Judy,” he begs.
She walks in other room, fixes it for him.
He sees her in fog as she somnolently walks toward him. She half-smiles, then smiles fully as she sees his tears.
Being the toxic man he is, he gives her a REAL kiss. After all, she’s now actually BECOME his dead love for him. Because that’s healthy.
In the next scene, we see them playful and flirty with each other—an echo of the earlier conversation with Midge, but with heat.
“Hello, my love. Like me?” She smiles and then spins for him in a pretty dress, her air and voice confident, easygoing—the tone of a well-loved woman. This is the first genuine smile we’ve seen from Kim Novak in the film. (Scary, right?)
“Mmmm,” he responds.
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Come here.”
“Oh no, you’ll muss me.”
“Well, that’s what I had in mind. Now come here.”
He then spots Madeleine’s necklace on her neck and knows Judy’s guilt. He says cryptically, “One final thing I have to do, and then I’ll be free of the past.”
Scottie drives Judy to Madeleine’s supposed suicide tower. He forces her up the stairs and through the trap door.
Then he attacks and half-strangles her, saying, “He [Gavin] made you over, didn’t he? He made you over just like I made you over, only better. Not only the clothes and the hair, but the looks and the manner and the words and those beautiful, phony trances….Did he train you, did he rehearse you, did he tell you exactly what to do, what to say? You were a very apt pupil too, weren’t you?”
It’s easy to read these words on multiple levels. Yes, he’s angry she deceived him and furious she’s taken advantage of his affliction. But he’s also angry that she’s had a former lover, Gavin. And he’s angry that Gavin was a better Geppetto than he was.
Scottie’s physical actions are brutal now that he knows what Judy’s done, but those actions are just an escalation of earlier ones.
Note how many times he pins Judy’s arms throughout this story, how many times he forces her from behind—whether it is to wear the clothes he wants, or to go up to a tower where her death awaits. Observe how many times she looks fearful, hesitant, unsure of herself. She is a victim of his cruelty, just as he has been a victim of the murderous plot.
Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie is the definition of a boyfriend who should make a woman run. If he doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies in Vertigo, you’re just not paying attention.
Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie are discussing a remake of TheThin Man, which has its longtime fans abuzz. While many ingredients are essential to an effective remake, the most important step is to take inspiration from the original pairing–cast the unexpected. After all, William Powell and Myrna Loy were dramatic actors. Manhattan Melodrama Director W.S. Van Dyke saw the two teasing each other on the set of his film and made a gamble: pair these two up in a rom-com/mystery, and see what happens.
What happened was comedy magic, the original film leading to FIVE sequels and the names Nick and Nora becoming shorthand for cool couple–even today. Who could be wittier, more stylish, more fun, more enviable than these two in action? No wonder Loy and Powell would ultimately be cast together in thirteen films.
So, of course, I’m thinking of what my casting would be. I wouldn’t object to Pitt and Robbie. Both have comedic talents, and even the age difference matches the source material (a book that is worth many rereads). But I want to spread my net a little wider. I love stories of actors playing unexpected parts: TV actress Mary Tyler Moore blowing us all away in Ordinary People, Malcolm in the Middle lead Bryan Cranston winning all the Emmys for the bleak Breaking Bad, the numerous dramatic actors chosen for comedy masterpiece Airplane!
Here are some possibilities I see. I’m borrowing people I love from TV and drama for this classic remake. I’m eager to hear your unexpected choices too….
William Jackson Harper & Awkwafina
Harper was a revelation as Chidi in The Good Place.
I could watch his peeps-in-the-chili scene all day. I found Crazy Rich Asians nearly as boring as The Kardashians, but Awkwafina? Wow. More Awkwafina for me, please. Can’t wait to watch the film with her and Sandra Oh, Quiz Lady.
Harper and Awkwafina both have a mixture of dry humor, unexpected timing, and perfect reaction shots in their repertoire. To see them play together would be a joy.
Jodie Comer & Aldis Hodge
Comer is a rising star for her dramas, an Emmy and Tony winner with a likely Oscar nod for The Bikeriders. But Killing Eve fans are eager to see her in a comedy given her stunningly funny facial expressions (and how long she holds them!) And wow, can that woman deliver a sarcastic line!
As for Hodge, he isn’t a big name yet since he rarely plays the starring role. Straight Outta Compton, Clemency, and One Night in Miami have demonstrated his dramatic skills, but we Leverage fans have seen this guy be FUNNY.
He’s good at dead pan AND high-energy freakouts (Nicholas Cage style). I think I’d give Comer the Nick role, and Hodge the Nora role. He’s especially funny when he grumbles under his breath, which would be a fine accompaniment to Comer’s detective antics. (We need Comer to have a super-showy part.)
Michael B. Jordan & Annie Murphy
I’ve been a Jordan fan since his indelible role as Wallace in The Wire. He has PRESENCE.
I can see him at ease in a comedic role like Nick’s, a part that calls for being suave as well as funny. Sure, he’s done little to prove his comedy chops yet, but the complexity of his performances convinces me that comic mastery is in his wheelhouse. And he can be quite funny in interviews.
Annie Murphy hasn’t yet found a role to equal her star-making turn in Schitt’s Creek.
Her offbeat timing, slapstick gifts, and talent for improvisation (“A Little Bit Alexis” alone) would help her improve on the script. Given her generosity as an actress (she always highlights her partner’s skills), I think she’d help Jordan develop his comic potential.
Catherine O’Hara & Ted Danson
These humorous powerhouses are old for the parts, so it’s unlikely they’d win them. But can you imagine watching their combined talents in action? Danson would play a mean Nick, wouldn’t he? So debonair, and so funny.
And O’Hara is so used to acting as a team–so good at playing off someone while holding her own.
I can dream….
Kristen Bell & Adam Scott
Kristen Bell has already proven her ability to play a witty sleuth in Veronica Mars, and Adam Scott has always been a great straight man. These two have impressive chemistry in Party Down and The Good Place. Let’s give them a movie that’s worthy of them. Watch their mutual self-deprecation when she interviews him on Jimmy KimmelLive.
Tatiana Maslany & Stephanie Beatriz
Anyone who has seen Maslany in Orphan Black knows that she can do anything.
The woman played five major clones in Orphan Black—and you could tell when one was pretending to be the other. She has a sense for the physical ticks of each character, their intonations, their accents. (In total, her clones were in the double digits.) She’d be an ideal actress for a con artist or spy role, but it would be entertaining to see her in a traditional detective part.
Maslany sure could fool anyone she interrogated as Nick, and the mysteries were often a weakness of The Thin Man series. A more inventive plot could take advantage of her versatility. As far as her humor? Some of her clones displayed some effective dark comedy–and she clearly has the ability to do some slapstick.
I would pair her with Stephanie Beatriz playing a version of her Rosa Diaz role in Brooklyn 99–stone-faced and dry, a great foil to Maslany’s ethereal presence.
Beatriz’s tough-gal performance in her most famous role is especially admirable since she seems almost giddy in real life….
No one can shake the Powell-Loy pairing from its pedestal. Honestly, I wouldn’t want that. But if the remake is different enough, it’ll just feel like two very different takes on a brilliant novel, not a poor shadow of a classic film.
I’m eager to hear your dream pairings in the comments! If you’d like other posts on ideal casting, see my friend and podcast co-host Mike Gutierrez’s awesome guest post on Hitchcock remakes!
The File on Thelma Jordan isn’t a noir of the same caliber as Barbara Stanwyck’s more famous films. It’s not Double Indemnity, or Sorry, Wrong Number or even The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. But with Stanwyck as a femme fatale, you know you’re going to enjoy yourself.
***Slight spoilers, but far fewer than in the trailer.
Of the 1,00000000 things I love about Stanwyck, one is how adult she always is. She doesn’t play twee or girly–even on the rare occasions she uses baby talk to get her way. She’s sensual and knowing, fiercely intelligent and wry. You can never discount her. And you know–even if you don’t admit it to yourself–that she has the upper hand–or will soon.
In The File on Thelma Jordan, she finds herself an easy fall guy, Assistant District Attorney Cleve (Wendell Corey). Cleve has a lot going for him: a loving family, a beautiful wife. But his wife is a daddy’s girl, and he doesn’t like that daddy. It doesn’t help that his father-in-law has all the wealth and power Cleve doesn’t–or that Cleve owes him.
That’s why Cleve drinks and feels sorry for himself, and he’s doing just that when Thelma (Stanwyck) happens upon him in his office while seeking his boss. She wants to report attempted burglaries to her wealthy Aunt Vera’s home, but instead agrees to get a drink with Cleve. She’s game, agreeing to be his buddy during his troubles. Of course, a sexy, sympathetic buddy is what every Cleve desires.
You can guess what happens: a secret affair, the aunt’s house being broken into, a murder. With Thelma, there’s no question of innocence. The question is HOW guilty is she? Did she commit the murder, did her shady ex, or did some third involved party? Whoever did it, poor Cleve is complicit, and ends up having to prosecute Thelma in a not-so-effective, likely-career-killing kind of way.
I don’t find Wendell Corey that appealing in the role, but there’s a sincerity to him; you believe this is a good, usually bright guy doing dumb things. Cleve is a smarter version of Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve. He’s not all that wary, but he’s intelligent enough to know he’s been had.
But of course, who cares about Corey, or anyone else in this film noir? This is Stanwyck’s show. And though the storytelling never rises to her abilities, every minute with her on the screen is a joy. Whether she’s acting as Cleve’s relaxed buddy, his maybe-smitten love, a wary defendant, or a hardbitten woman of the world, Thelma is riveting. Don’t miss her in action.
Burning (2018) is the kind of film that rides on a great premise: Guy meets and falls for elusive girl. He loses elusive girl to rich guy. Elusive girl disappears. Is she just following her elusive nature, or did rich guy do her in?
None of the characters but the rich guy–Ben (Steven Yeun)–are compelling. The elusive girl, Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), is annoying and so fragile. Her allure to hero Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is more about his own desperate unhappiness than any charm.
But it’s that very lack of charm that makes Ben’s attraction to her suspect. We see him yawning during one of her sad attempts to gain attention. WHY is he with her? He is too suave, too handsome, too lucky, too cool, too mysterious to be be seduced by her.
Also, his self-confessed hobby is arson, which is not exactly innocent. But is Ben really an arsonist, is he fabricating felonies to mess with Jong-su, or is he disguising his murders in metaphors?
Jong-su is that rare hero in noir who does NOT make possible killer Ben feel the need to murder him in self-defense. There are no flamboyant public or even private accusations. Jong-su shores up clues about Hae-mi’s disappearance and Ben’s potential involvement. But he says little and deflects when Ben tries to discover what he’s up to. Jong-su is, in fact, a pretty good amateur detective.
The film does a beautiful job putting you in this detective’s place: What would you do if you suspected foul play, but couldn’t prove it? What if everyone in a missing woman’s life dismissed her (and thus would not be filling out a missing person report)? Would you keep trying? The uncertainty haunts you as you watch Jong-su’s growing desperation.
At first, it seems Burning is a bit of a misnomer. Maybe “Slow Burn” would suit it more. The film creeps up on you. In fact, it teeters on the edge of boring until Ben enters the picture. It then becomes relentlessly disquieting. While the triangle is supposedly between the woman and two men, it’s Ben and Jong-su who play a fascinating dance with one another, with Ben seemingly befriending Jong-su, far more interested in him than he ever seemed in Hae-mi–or in the woman he may be targeting next.
The question is about the nature of Ben’s interest. Is killer Ben trying to discover what Jong-su knows? Is he innocent and just curious why a man of Jong-su’s intelligence is so fascinated by this girl who intrigued him for mere minutes? Or is this all about class, Ben wondering what makes a poor man tick? (All Jong-su has are a mother who abandoned him, a father going to jail, and one cow he needs to sell.) Ben might be seeking what drives Jong-su, what story he wants to tell or live.
But Ben’s interest in Jong-su could be more sinister: a combination of all of these possibilities. Perhaps he DID kill Hae-mi, and is genuinely curious why Jong-su would care that this poor, lackluster girl would be snuffed out.
I would have liked the movie more had the time before Ben been shortened, and the time with him lengthened. I could have used a whole movie devoted to this potential villain. It doesn’t hurt that Steven Yeun owns the role. He performs so well on that edge: not quite creepy, not quite innocent, darting from judgments. Ben has all the luck–and personality–on his side the whole time, so Jong-su’s increasing frustration at his impermeability makes so much sense. This is not an equals fighting one another situation; Ben holds every card.
The film is worth the watch. After spending the whole movie wondering about the title, I walked away knowing how suitable it was. Some conclusions are reached at the movie’s end, but so much more is still tantalizingly out of reach.
Most film noirs are cautionary as well as bad luck tales. But there’s a particular type that seems to be created by untrusting husbands and wives, the “you’ll be sorry if you cheat” noir. The most memorable for many of us are Fatal Attraction (1987) for the disloyal husband, Unfaithful (2002) for the straying wife. But the genre has a long history. The Prowler (1951) stands out in this list because it stars Van Heflin, whose charisma highlights just how easy the tumble into marital infidelity can be.
Van Heflin isn’t a name that stands out to any but classic movie fans despite his 1942 Oscar win, but his films do, particularly 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Shane (1953), in which he plays steady husbands who can’t compete with the glamour of flashy gunslingers. In these films you feel the stamped-down passion of a man who has been worn down by hard work and harder luck. I prefer the roles in which Van Heflin plays lighter characters, like the gambler of The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), the adventurer in Green Dolphin Street (1947), or Althos in The Three Musketeers (1948). These roles capture the sexy quicksilver nature and physicality of a man who once left acting to be a sailor.
***some early spoilers ahead***
It’s that impulsiveness that makes Van Heflin so alluring as a cop in The Prowler. He might return to check on the lonely wife (Evelyn Keyes) who calls to report a peeping Tom, or he might not. He might call her back or pretend he doesn’t get her calls. He sets her at ease by sharing the Indiana roots he holds in common with her. But it’s his carefree manner of walking through her house that makes her prefer him to her older, stodgier husband, who–coded as the reference may be in a 50s film–seems to be impotent.
Unfortunately, the wife doesn’t notice the cop checking out her husband’s will in between visits to her bed. And so she doesn’t know for sure when he pretends to be the prowler in order to kill her husband whether it was an accidental killing (as the inquest claims), or not. When she marries the cop, she takes it for granted he’ll be pleased with her too-far-along pregnancy instead of seeing it as the danger it is. But as noir-aware audiences, we wonder, what happens when that bump gets bigger? I had eerie Fargo flashbacks as I watched the cop go about his plans. Will bystanders suffer the fate of those poor drivers in that Coen brother masterpiece? What about this new wife, who is now a liability? Suddenly, the unpredictability that attracted the now-widow looks less like sexiness, and more like the danger warned in the Coens’ own infidelity noir, Blood Simple (1984).
The Prowler plays its potential endings close to the vest, and the movie is bare and streamlined, as a good noir should be. It seems, in fact, like the film could have been written yesterday with a few tweaks. We audiences don’t know what the cop will do, but we are remindedthat cheating is a risky game, especially for a woman before her biological clock runs out. So beware of the sexy Van Heflins of the world, men with quick smiles and chips on their shoulder. Beware of the man who acts casual as he rifles through paperwork in your home. Beware–the jealous spouses of the world warn we viewers–and keep him safely outside of your door.
