Film Reviews by Steve

This documentary style presentation of the underground activity of the OSS in France in WWII claims to be factual. There is the typical stentorious voice over which implies authenticity. And there's a title card claiming it was all shot on the locations of the actual events. But this isn't true, it was extensively filmed in Canada.

And what began life as a biopic of a leading espionage official in Washington was compromised when he took his name off the project. As the story progresses, the narrative gets less credible. So this is a Hollywood spy thriller, and it's successful on those terms. There had actually already been a film about US intelligence a year earlier, called OSS.

The neorealist style is one Henry Hathaway adopted across many genres in the late '40s. James Cagney leads the espionage unit and shows us plenty of his apparently genuine combat skills. Annabella brings some authentic Frenchness, though unfortunately hardly figures. And one of the support cast turns out to be a Nazi counteragent...

What starts as a procedural presentation of training and operations evolves into a pro-American blockbuster. And both parts work fine. The realism is interesting and the climax is exciting. Though admittedly it's a shameful deception to claim this is all non-fiction. And the title, that's the location of gestapo HQ in Le Havre. Or so they say.

Unique collaboration between (arguably) the most celebrated director of the late silent era, and its most famous documentary maker. FW Murnau and Robert Flaherty conceived a dramatic narrative which would also be an ethnological depiction of the people of Bora Bora in the South Seas. Flaherty soon left the project because he felt there was too much drama and not enough ethnology.

So Murnau directed solo a story drawn from the indigenous population. It's a silent film, but with an embedded musical soundtrack. He used local people as his cast and crew, assisted by an American cinematographer, who won the Oscar (Floyd Crosby). And he was fortunate to discover two charismatic amateurs to play the leads.

The actors are credited in their character names. Reri is a young girl chosen for the traditional role of a sacred virgin. But she is in love with Matahi. They run away to an island inhabited by the French colonialists, but are pursued by the indigenous elder (Hitu) and the foreign administrators and police who don't want a tribal war.

Many events are photographed at sea because the people survive off the ocean. And Matahi makes a living as a pearl diver when he escapes from his home. It's a tragedy which probes the iniquities of empire and explores a way of life unfamiliar to western audiences. It benefits hugely from being the (final) work of one of the greatest ever film makers.

This is one of the postwar American crime films influenced by Italian Neorealism. So there's a credit stating it was shot in authentic locations, including interiors. But this being Hollywood, there are no amateur actors. Instead we get Victor Mature as a jailed robber who turns in his accomplices to be at home with his kids.

So he is hunted down by the mob. Richard Widmark's debut performance as a giggling psycho-hitman made the most impact. He is something new in the studio era, a deranged goofball who really enjoys his work. Like when he famously pushes an elderly cripple (Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs before killing her.

It's the face-off between the stoolie and the wired hophead that generates the drama and a decent climax. The support roles are commonplace, though it's startling how quickly Coleen Grey steps in to perform the duties of Mature's wife after her suicide. There is an impression of censorship being challenged; it's quite violent, for the period.

And there's an effort to portray realistic sleaziness. These docudramas now get marketed as film noir, but are different. There is expressionism, but no shadows or skewed camera angles. Few hardboiled epigrams, but plenty of street jargon. It's mainly interesting for the period New York locations and Widmark's innovative performance.

This may be the most controversial film Hollywood ever made. Released on the threshold of the communist witch hunt, most of those involved were subsequently blacklisted, forced to abandon their career and in some cases, escape from the US to find work. Director Robert Rossen betrayed others to save himself.

It takes inspiration from the boxing pictures of the depression. John Garfield is a poor immigrant kid from the ghetto who takes up the fight game but is corrupted. It's a racket where poor kids beat up each other and take the risks while the wealthy rake off the rewards. And rig the winners and losers

And Garfield is superb as the tough, swaggering antihero who thinks with his fists and destroys everyone else. Though he's a redeemable stooge. Among the stalwart support cast there's a landmark performance from Canada Lee in probably the most dignified role for a black actor in Hollywood up to that time.

It's big on atmosphere, with the dramatic scenes shot film noir style, but the boxing contests are as real as a Weegee photograph. The narrative is overfamiliar and Rossen struggles to get it to move. There are better films which equate boxing with capitalism, but they were made in the long shadow of this one.

Slow, understated film noir which which gives Dick Powell plenty of opportunity to deliver droll, hardboiled dialogue as the finagler for a dim racketeer (Thomas Gomez) who owns a gambling joint, while he attracts the attention of an array of supporting starlets.

A casino hatcheck girl (Nina Foch) entangled with a corrupt cop is murdered, and Powell has to keep himself out out of the electric chair while dallying with the victim's beautiful sister (Evelyn Keyes). And stop his jealous boss from nixing him for playing around with his alcoholic wife (Ellen Drew).

This was Robert Rossen's debut as director and while he's adept at creating the pessimistic ambience of noir, as co-writer he doesn't generate any dramatic intensity, at least until the climax. So it lacks energy. Everyone stands around the threadbare sets swapping sardonic wisecracks. And these often feel secondhand.

Its main merits are Burnett Guffey's luminous noir photography and Lee J. Cobb as the crumpled, dogged cigar chewing detective trying to make sense of it all. It's worth it for the atmosphere of the city at night, where it always rains and everyone smokes in the ominous shadows. While malign destiny closes in.

Twisty but implausible golden age film noir which elevates an assembly of capable support actors to lead roles with some success. Vincent Price- in the period before he became a horror star- plays a reptilian corporate investor who intends to erase a witness to a major fraud, now just released from state prison.

So he incriminates a troublesome lawyer (Edmond O'Brien) for the murder. And then frames his own lissom personal assistant (Ella Raines) who arouses his jealousy. William Bendix plays the determined, procedural detective. Which is a fine cast, but maybe O'Brien isn't quite a good fit for the romantic lead with his eye on Ella's nylons.

Though he's a decent fall guy. As was typical of postwar film noir, the arena of business and finance is portrayed as corrupt, and the filthy rich as rapacious sociopaths... and Price makes a loathsome villain. His schemes are so reckless its amazing he even got out of college. His solution to every setback is murder!

The photography is commonplace and looks like it was shot quickly and cheaply on rudimentary sets. There's a decent hardboiled script with some penetrating wisecracks, but nothing quotable. It's worth seeing chiefly for that relishable cast. Raines could do Lauren Bacall even better than the real thing.

Improbable but entertaining murder mystery with a lavish production budget which allows its trio of female stars to model some chic gowns on the elaborate sets. Which Michael Curtiz gives a striking film noir look. There's a touch of Columbo as we see the killer in the opening scene and then wait for the law to catch up.

So there's no spoiler in disclosing that Claude Rains plays a suave psycho-killer who murders an alarming number of his household residents without attracting much attention from the cops. It takes an interested gentleman detective to uncover his depravity. Rains is a bit too insidiously malevolent to watch with any pleasure though.

And those female stars: Joan Caulfield is the demure beauty Claude is looking to turn into a large inheritance; Audrey Totter, who must have been sewn into her clothes, is best as a sexy poor relation; and Constance Bennett sparkles as the sophisticated comic relief. The male roles struggle to make much impact among all this glamour.

It's one of those films where wealthy cosmopolitans stand around their lavish mansion while swapping supercilious bonmot in their evening wear. And wait their turn to die. If you can suspend disbelief, there's some fun to be had. And in our age of digital surveillance it's cute to watch the villain snare his victims using huge slabs of recordable vinyl.

Surprising that only a year after his success with Gilda, Glenn Ford was in such a minor film noir. And there are many echoes of that film; Janis Carter even looks like Rita Hayworth. It's a psycho-sexual power struggle between a scheming, sexy knockout and a pliable, alcoholic drifter. She wants his body. But not in the usual way!

The glamourgirl works in a sleazy bar looking for a man about the size of her married boyfriend to burn in a car crash, for the usual reasons. Ford is the perfect match. He arrives in an out of control truck. Given the influence of the Hollywood left on early noir, maybe this is intended as a critique of the unregulated haulage industry!

There are disappointments: Burnett Guffey is a great noir photographer, but this looks bright and realistic; and director Richard Wallace doesn't create much suspense. It was made quickly and cheaply. Ford doesn't look engaged, maybe because Carter has the better role. And she's pretty good. The title sometimes goes under her name, Paula.

It's the genre dynamic of the femme fatale versus the male dupe that still works best. The grim, violent premise is interesting, and this could have been a much stronger film, with a decent budget. It is a short, punchy thriller; second level film noir. Though that's intended as a compliment.

Ultra-pessimistic film noir which has many interesting genre features but is ultimately frustrated by Byron Haskin's uninspired direction. The premise is familiar from gangster films of the early '30s; a hapless stooge (Burt Lancaster) takes the rap for his partner (Kirk Douglas) when their racket gets tumbled during prohibition.

So when the fall guy is sprung from the big house 14 years later, he expects a share of his old pal's hot nightspot. But the ex-jailbird is an anachronism. The mobs are over. Now WWII has happened, the concept of the sucker coming home to find others have done very well in his absence and don't want to share the rewards, has a deeper resonance.

Burt was always a good punchbag in his noir days and Kirk is well cast as the vicious, impregnable top dog. Lizabeth Scott shimmers sensuously as the chanteuse who swaps sides. But Wendell Corey is best as the crooked, careworn accountant, slowly worn down by his guilty conscience. The quality cast gets some nice hardboiled dialogue.

When Lancaster assembles a gang to extract his cut by force, instead of exchanging gunfire, he finds he is holding up a cartel and he can't get his whack without a vote by the shareholders! This is based on a New York play (by Theodore Reeves) and this standout scene is all that's left of its negative critique of capitalism! Which is a shame.

Hyperemotional, genre-blending curiosity which starts with 16 minutes of gaslight melodrama and concludes a lot like film noir. But what it mostly resembles is those glossy '50s melodramas adapted from fat bestsellers about a loner who drifts back to his old home town to uncover the corruption of the powerful people he left behind.

The opening flashback shows the murder of her brutal stepmother by a teenage girl. Who grows into Barbara Stanwyck. Kirk Douglas plays her husband, a witness to the coverup. Between them, they own Iverstown, a small city in the midwest. Van Heflin is her former childhood sweetheart who stumbles back into their toxic marriage and malign influence.

He forms an alliance with a jailbird (Lizabeth Scott). She's on parole for theft, though maybe censorship code for sex worker. Their early scenes are alluring, like restless, rootless nighthawks in an Edward Hopper painting. Stanwyck stars, but has more of a support role, until she ultimately revives her psycho-killer persona from Double Indemnity.

Kirk gets more screen time in his debut, oddly cast as the panicky submissive under her thumb. There's plenty of gloomy noir fatalism, but it more persuasively suggests those febrile, small town melodramas of the next decade, like Some Came Running. This isn't in Technicolor and CinemaScope. But it would feel appropriate if it was.

Simply gorgeous first wave film noir. This description stands for the gleaming, stunning b&w photography as well as its photogenic future stars. Burt Lancaster (in his screen debut) is a dumb fall guy whose head gets messed around by Ava Gardner's luminous femme fatale. There's a landmark score too, from Miklós Rózsa.

The opening 12 minutes are taken from a short story by Ernest Hemingway, and this is the best part of the picture. It feels 10 years ahead of its time. Lancaster is gunned down by a pair of tough, laconic hitmen in a motel in New Jersey, and just takes it. And the rest of the film mostly looks into how the Swede got so fatalistic.

This is like Citizen Kane, only these flashbacks are in the wrong order. There's a touch of genius to Robert Siodmak's feel for film noir. This is choked up with pessimism. Unfortunately the many exceptional parts don't add up to a wholly satisfying experience. This is mostly because the huge back story about a heist gone wrong is so commonplace.

Burt and Ava look glamorous, but their screen presence isn't quite there yet. Edmond O'Brien is fine as a rather sleazy insurance investigator following up the minor policy triggered by the Swede's demise and finding a deeper crime. This is an incredibly inventive, groundbreaking film noir but not always as irresistible as it looks.

This reunites the director (Irving Rapper) and stars (Bette Davis and Paul Henreid) of Now, Voyager, which was a box office hit in 1942. It's another romantic melodrama, only with a twist of film noir; this is much darker, and even features a murder. But still what they used to call a 'woman's picture' back in the studio era.

Davis is a minor neophyte on the piano wedged in a love triangle between two musical genius': she marries a brittle, penniless cellist (Henreid) just out of a Nazi concentration camp; and throws over a wealthy and narcissistic composer (Claude Rains) whose orchestra may be able to give her new husband the big break.

So, it's an intriguing dilemma for postwar audiences. Rains' jealous mind games are cruel. But he pays the bills. There's the usual motifs of the genre, with Bette's fabulous gowns and furs and the des-res of her modernist, Manhattan loft apartment in stark contrast with her egomaniacal former lover's baroque townhouse.

So much luxury in a time of austerity. There's an abundance of orchestral music on the soundtrack, composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It's a lesser Davis vehicle, but enjoyable for its excesses; mainly her and Rains' expressionist performances. Plus it's one of the Hollywood films post-WWII which refer, however obliquely, to the trauma of the survivors.

So many Hollywood classics are connected to a scare story that George Raft was close to being cast in the lead, like it would be be the worst possible calamity. Including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and Double Indemnity. Well he's actually in this RKO film noir, and while he sleepwalks through the role, he's ok. Though this isn't a picture of that stature.

It's a minor murder mystery about a rich playboy musician who is gunned down in his swanky Frank Lloyd Wright show home while playing the title song on his grand piano. The idiots at LAPD say suicide, but a maverick on homicide (Raft, naturally) suspects one of the many bombshells whose pictures decorate the walls of the death room.

So the detective chases them down. There are signs that this was once a longer film with more leads followed up, and the clumsy editing shows. Sometimes the search for the murderer seems to be forgotten while the cop cracks wise with the RKO starlets. Virginia Huston stands out among the photogenic suspects.

There's some decent smartass dialogue, and attractive noir photography. And there's a nice, studio impression of LA and a few sultry torch songs performed in a glitzy hotspot. Raft eventually gets suspended for his obsessive behaviour and goes solo, but really should have been kicked off the force for taking so long to solve the case!

Fast, laconic thriller that is mostly remembered now for the original screenplay by hardboiled poet Raymond Chandler, two years after his co-write on Double Indemnity kicked off the whole film noir movement. There's a dusting of classic dialogue but this leaves the impression he was saving the best lines for his novels; and was never the best at plots.

Critics claim film noir reflects the alienation of returning WWII combat veterans who find everything has changed in their absence. In this case, it isn't subtext. Alan Ladd plays a navy pilot who comes home to find his wife (Doris Dowling) is playing around, and he can't find a room...When the flyer's fitted up for her murder, he must clear his name.

Maybe the real guilty party is his best pal (William Bendix) back from the Pacific with PTSD and a steel plate in his head. Or the ex-gangster (Howard Da Silva) who has been playing house in the dead dame's apartment. He runs The Blue Dahlia hotspot and is married to Veronica Lake, who picks up the accused on the highway, to see what he knows.

So it's a vehicle for Ladd and Lake... though Bendix steals the film. The ending was compromised when the US Navy refused to have a sailor guilty of the crime. And director George Marshall was more suited to light comedy than stylish noir. But there's a nice big band soundtrack and period LA feel. Maybe a let down for Chandler fans, but still a decent noir.

Enigmatic psychological murder mystery from Joseph Lewis, maybe the best B-picture director of the studio era. It's film noir because of Burnett Guffey artistic, shadowy photography but the story is more of a golden age whodunit. There are no mean streets. The final twist isn't original, but is executed with considerable élan.

Steven Geray plays a famous Parisian sleuth who is released to the country to recuperate- for as long as it takes. The diffident, middle aged detective falls in love with a young woman (Micheline Cheirel) already engaged. When she and the childhood sweetheart are found dead, the grieving holidaymaker investigates.

It's an intriguing puzzle, though not difficult to unravel. There is a slight impression of the story being stretched to fit feature length. The cast is little known. Geray is familiar from support roles in Columbia's major releases, and his lack of star charisma suits his role as the modest suitor who has never experienced love.

It's the director's imagination which most impresses. He exploits the evocative studio setting of a rural French village with some wonderful visual flourishes. And accumulates a powerful sense of fatalism as we drill down into the killer's fractured obsession. He creates the kind of living dreamworld which will one day be explored by David Lynch.