Panic in the Streets (1950) - Noir For the Public Good

First, a quick note of housekeeping: I'm hoping to get quite a few reviews up this week, sort of a deck clearing  effort, before starting in with next week's Public Domain 101 where we'll take a bit of a step back and take more of a look at what exactly the Public Domain is, what it isn't, and why you should care.

Generally, the term film noir is associated with movies where the only real theme is the downward spiral of the protagonist. Occasionally, as in the noirs that came out during World War II, we'll see these films delve into something larger like the "growing Nazi menace", but for the most part that's simply overlay for the general development of mood or atmosphere that the director is trying to bring to the screen. Rarely do we find a director really trying to confront anything larger than one man's personal downfall.

Perhaps that's part of what makes the films of Elia Kazan, and this film  in particular, stand out from the typical noir fare, and why it would go on to win two Academy Awards.

New Blogcritics Article

Just had a new article published at Blogcitics.org. This time it's a look at the 1945 movie Detour, and why it's such a good example of the film noir genre. Just click the link above and check it out!

Whodunnit Wednesday - Hollow Triumph (1948)

There are basically two types of film noir protagonists: the basically good person who makes a bad decision that eventually leads him into a downward spiral to trouble and usually murder or death, and the desperate bad guy who just can't leave bad enough alone and finds himself on that same downward spiral. Paul Henreid, who plays Johnny Muller in today's feature is definitely the second type.

Hollow Triumph, also known as The Scar, is the story of Johnny Muller, a man just released from prison. In the opening shots of the film we see the prison warden looking over Johnny's file, noting that he is an educated man, once convicted of practicing psyciatry without a license. The reason he has been in jail for the past two years, however, is because of a failed holdup. A job has been arranged for Johnny on the outside - a job that, though meager in pay, is meant to be a chance for a new start on life.

this new start, however, is simply not good enough for Johnny. Instead of immediately taking the bus to his intended new home, he goes to a local flop house and meets up with his old gang, eventually convincing them to pull one more job - holding up a casino run by an extremely well-connected and vengeful gangster. The rest of Johnny's gang seem afraid to cross him, but they also are afraid of the intended target, who is reputed to have once had a man who crossed him tracked down and killed in Paris. Nonetheless, Johnny seems inexorably drawn to the job and he is not going to let anything stand in his way.

The holdup of course goes wrong, and two of Johnny's men are captured. They immediately give up the goods on the rest of the gang, including Johnny. At that point the hood tells his enforcers to find them "even if it takes twenty years". Paranoid, but desperate to get out of town and find a way to lay low, Johnny decides that his best bet is to take the job that had been previously arranged for him.

Chafing at the legitimate work and low pay, Johnny still manages to persevere in his new setting until one day fate intervenes in the form of a dentist who mistakes him for a psychiatrist who works in the same office building. According to the dentist, the two men look exactly alike except for one thing: the psychiatrist has a large scar on his right, or is it his left? who can remember? cheek. Johnny then goes to the psychiatrist's office where he is immediately met and kissed by the man's secretary, played by Joan Bennett, who may very well be the lady the phrase "femme fatale" was coined for. She, too, has mistaken him for Dr. Bartok - at least until she gets a good look at him.

Back at his job, Johnny gets into an altercation with his boss which leas to fisticuffs and his firing. Johnny then receives a visit from his brother infoming him that his second-hand man has been killed in Mexico, and that men are now in town looking for him. Desperate and on the run, Johnny decides to take the place of Dr. Bartok. First however, he must learn all about him - a tactic which includes romancing his secretary. Oh, and there's also the matter of that scar.

A film of many twists, with a wonderfully dark noir atmosphere, Hollow Triumph certainly delivers on the downward spiral mentioned above. The question remains open, however, whether it is fate or simply Johnny's choices that lead him to the inevitable conclusion. During the attempted heist we learn that despite all of his careful planning, Johnny has overlooked one important detail, and it is that same lack of attention to detail that will trip him up in the end. Or perhaps, once the decision is made to stray from the straight and narrow, there is simply no other way for Johnny's story to end.

No trailer today, I'm afraid, but here's the opening moments of the film (with the alternate title) to give you a taste:



The Skinny:
Title: Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar)
Release Date 1948
Running Time: 82min
Black and White
Starring: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett
Directed by: Steve Sekely
Produced by: Paul Henreid
Released by: Eagle-Lion Films

Hollow Triumph is available to watch or download for free here.
It's also available on DVD from Amazon: Hollow Triumph
It does not appear to be available from Netflix.



Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian

Mystery Wednesday - Suddenly (1954) starring Frank Sinatra

Ok, pop quiz, hotshots! When does Old Blue Eyes not have blue eyes? When the Hal Roach Studios gets ahold of a classic Frank Sinatra gangster movie and decides to colorize it. In doing so, they made the odd decision that Sinatra's eyes should be brown. Off course, this was in the early days of colorization, so honestly there were a lot of colors that weren't very well done, but this seemed a particularly egregious mistake. Fortunately, for those of us who prefer our noir in black and white, it's also available both online and on disk in its original format.

For those who only remember Sinatra from later years when he was best known as a lounge singer or a member of the rat pack, Suddenly may come as quite a surprise. As he had already shown inthe previous year's From Here to Eternity, and would again in 1962 with The Manchurian Candidate , Sinatra was quite the dramatic actor.

In this very dark outing, Sinatra plays a hitman named John Baron who has been hired to kill the (unnamed) American president as he pulls in for a whistle-stop speech in the small California town of  Suddenly. (Yeah, the town is called Suddenly. Because "That's the way things used to happen here." Wanna make something of it?) Weaseling their way into the Benson home by pretending to be FBI agents, Sinatra and his henchmen set about getting ready to put their plan into action. Once the Bensons realise who Baron and his men really are, they attempt to talk them out of the killing, and then Pop Benson (played by James Gleason) tries to sabotage the proceedings. There's also a confrontation with Sheriff Tod Shaw (played by Sterling Hayden) and a real Secret Service agent (Willis Bouchey). But nothing and no-one is going to stop a determined Baron from fulfilling his contract.

The movie, with its true sense of desperation and inevitability is very much in the film noir genre, and Sinatra proves a very creditable lead as the odds mount against him but he remains determined to pull the trigger. not even losing one of his men in a gunfight with the police or the unexpected appearance of a television repairman who quickly becomes a hostage. In a review at the time of the film's release, The Hollywood Reporter stated "As an assassin in the piece, Sinatra superbly refutes the idea that the straight role potentialities in From Here To Eternity was one shot stuff. In Suddenly, the happy-go-lucky soldier of Eternity becomes one of the most repellent killers in American screen history."

Again, as with Mclintock, this is a case where the copyright simply wasn't renewed after the first 28 year period, so the movie fell into the public domain. Some say that one reason the copyright wasn't renewed was that Sinatra (and distributer United Artists) wanted to disassociate himself from it after rumors that Lee Harvey Oswald watched it shortly before he killed President Kennedy.

I wasn't able to find an official trailer online for this film, but here's one apparently created by youtube user publicdomaintheatre that gives a good sense of what the movie is like (though I've got to admit i don't really like the overlay filter):


Ok, time for the skinny:

Title: Suddenly
Release Date: 1954
Running Time 75 min.
Black and White (though colorized versions are available - they're not recommended, but they're available.)
Stars: Frank Sinatra, James Gleason, Sterling Hayden, Nancy Gates
Director: Lewis Allen
Producer: Robert Bassler
Studio: United Artists

You can watch (or download) the movie for free online by clicking here.
It's also available on DVD from Amazon: Suddenly (Yes, this disk includes a colorized version, but it is not the horrendous Hal Roach version - this one is newly remastered and also includes an incredibly sharp (also remastered) b/w version. And yes, Frankie's eyes are blue in this one.)
The movie is also available to "Watch now" from netflix: Suddenly

Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting
-Professor Damian