Madame Du Barry (1934) : An undiscovered gem

Just saw this little known semi-masterpiece on the TCM channel. I can’t speak to its historical accuracy but it hardly matters; the picture is an absolute delight from start to finish. Nonetheless, some historical background : Madame Du Barry (Dolores del Rio) was a courtesan extraordinaire in Seventeenth Century France and eventual companion of King Louis XV, but alas became a victim of the guillotine during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. 

Interesting that the present film was followed only a few years later by the much more serious, even pretentious, Marie Antoinette, with the great Norma Shearer in the title role. Anyway both films have a similar look with lush costumes and sets and a certain flair for period authenticity, but there the similarity ends. Specifically, Madame Du Barry is much more a sex farce and comedy of manners than historical epic, though its broad historical outlines seem reasonably correct. 

Speaking with a French/Mexican accent, the incredibly beautiful Dolores Del Rio gives an irresistibly energetic, exuberant performance in the title role, and what’s more she seems to be having a great time immersing herself in the part. I’ve seen snippets of her films but didn’t know she was this good; she had a real flair for comedy, and to be sure, probably Madame du Barry wasn’t as madcap as Dolores’s intensely physical, manic performance implies but who can say. 

Dolores is wonderful but so is the supporting cast, especially Anita Louise as Marie Antoinette and Dorothy Tree, Helen Howell & Joan Wheeler as Louis' scheming daughters. But scene-stealing honors have to go to Reginald Owen as the befuddled King Louis XV. In Owen’s marvelously sympathetic portrayal Louis comes across as a real human being, composed of equal parts lecherous hedonist, practical - and sometimes devious - politician, and, not least of all, infatuated suitor.

Moreover, everything else in Madame Du Barry is first-rate : sets, camerawork, lighting, costumes. But the thing that breathes life into what could have been a shallow historical romp is the sparkling, pitch-perfect script which bubbles like vintage Dom Pérignon. The principals all chirp away on court gossip without ever lapsing into caricature; the actors’ rapid-fire, almost sing-song delivery is such that one expects Gilbert & Sullivan melodies to erupt any minute. It’s a fine balancing act, and the film pulls it off brilliantly. The other crucial element in the film’s success is the fine work of director William Dieterle, whose smooth, brisk style brings to mind Michael Curtiz. 

Information is unclear whether this was a Code or pre-Code movie, but in any case it’s all pretty risqué for the 1930s : lots of knowing, suggestive dialogue and bedroom scenes; Dolores flouncing about in a sheer, more or less see-through nightgown; but most of all the banquet scene which includes near-to-the-buff dancing beauties which Louis ogles with lustful approval. 

A thoroughly wonderful film. Highly recommended.

style ***

substance ***

Hell hath no fury: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne; Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne. Les Films Raoul Polquin; un film de Robert Bresson; scénario et adaptation de Robert Bresson; une production Raoul Polquin. Based on Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître by Denis Diderot. Originally released as a motion picture in 1945. Camera, Philippe Agostini; editor, Jean Feyte; music, Jean-Jacques Grünenwald; production design, Robert Lavallée. With : Maria Casarès, Paul Bernard, Elina Labourdette, Lucienne Bogaert, Jean Marchat.


   When I first saw this film about ten years ago, it blew me away and immediately went to the top of my list of the best pictures one never heard of. Happily, the film is much better known these days, with much of the credit for its increased familiarity going to the Criterion DVD release in ’03.

   The story itself is pitifully thin: a beautiful society woman plots revenge on a boyfriend who has jilted her for another woman. And for all the riches that director Bresson and cinematographer Philippe Agostini tease from such limited material, Les Dames is ultimately about atmosphere and character. Indeed, with one notable exception, discussed below, the stars of the film are its irresistible black and white look and the Paris locales [1]. Speaking of Paris, I’d be interested in the film’s production history. It was released in 1945, only a year after the Liberation, but there’s not the slightest hint of the war.

   There are good performances throughout. Though not a particularly memorable actor, Paul Bernard is competent and sympathetic as he glides through the role of the smitten playboy. Cary Grant lite, if you will. The wonderfully luminous Élina Labourdette gives an affecting performance (which includes a couple of impressive dance numbers) as the virtuous heroine with a shady past [2], her naiveté a perfect foil to the calculating malevolence of her nemesis Hélène. But ultimately the movie belongs to the incredibly intense, elegantly creepy Maria Casarès [3] as the said character Hélène. With her thick, flowing black locks, Madame Grès and Schiaparelli wardrobe (dark tones, please) [4], vampiric features (those eyes!), and the vague hint of bisexuality, she’s the very embodiment of the noir spider woman. Apparently she was a legend on the Paris stage in the Forties and Fifties but alas made few films, and we’re the poorer for it. Another note: Paul Bernard and Maria Casarès almost look enough alike to be brother and sister, which adds a subtle touch of kinky to an already perverse love story. 

   But is Les Dames film noir? Well, maybe. There’s no crime, strictly speaking, but Hélène's spiteful and malicious acts border on the criminal. Dames also has the requisite b&w look, the themes of psychosexual obsession and betrayal, and an incomparable femme fatale, all noir staples. Then again, one could just as easily describe it as a drawing room melodrama, almost a comedy of manners, done in an eminently Forties style. Indeed, in some ways the story line is not unlike one of Ernst Lubitsch's frothy comedies, except that the treatment is much darker.

   Whatever its genre, Les Dames is a terrific film, multilayered, subtle and strangely haunting, with a great cast, score and visuals. One caution: it has a very restrained, quintessentially European pacing and tone (i.e. it’s slow). Thus if your thing is explosions, car chases and action-filled high adrenaline, then better pass this one by.

style ****
substance ****

Reviews : Film Sufi ; Film Couture: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne; The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne ; Dress Inspiration: Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)


   [1] Curiously, in view of its noirish bonafides, including being the city where the term and concept originated, Paris has not been the setting for many noirs. Rififi and Touchez pas au grisbi spring to mind but few others.

   [2] It was unclear to me whether Agnés was supposed to be a former prostitute. It's not so much of a stretch actually to see the notorious dancer character as euphemism for prostitute, especially in the context of 1940s Paris.
  
   [3] She reached her cinematic zenith four years later as Death's messenger in Orphée, about as fatale a character as one can play!

   [4] Inexplicably, neither lady's contribution is mentioned in the credits.

In Les Justes of Albert Camus. Paris, Theatre Hebertot, 1949. [Photo Roger Viollet].

apolcalyptic noir: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

   [editor’s note : Kiss Me Deadly is probably the most written about of all the classic noirs*; the short list - and it is indeed a short list - of films noirs which have inspired a comparable volume of critical commentary might include Out of the Past, Double Indemnity and Touch of Evil. Thus, the rather desperate need for a raison d’etre, lest I inspire responses like : horrors! another post on Kiss Me Deadly?!! The reader’s indulgence then is humbly requested as I explore below some issues in the film which have yet to be fully discussed, in particular the cinematic Hammer’s apparent liberal bent. This posting will assume a basic knowledge of the film’s story, thus there won’t be too much in the way of plot summary. -- BCS]

  * Noir commentator Alain Silver writes that "structuralist, formalist, feminist, auteurist, and Marxist critics alike have all found something to admire in it . . . . despite these wide-ranging critical excursions, one never gets the sense that the depths of Kiss Me Deadly have been fully probed.” A good thing, since it seems everyone, this writer included, wants to have his say about KMD, especially so with the Criterion DVD release in 2011, which has inspired a flood of commentary.

Postmodern dick


“How civilized this earth used to be. But as the world becomes more primitive, its treasures become more fabulous.”

"If Kiss Me Deadly were a brand-new film, it would still be shocking in its mean spirit, its happy brutality and its audacious mix of real and surreal elements. That it was made in 1955 makes the picture all the more astonishing. Loosely based on the Mickey Spillane novel of the same name, this Robert Aldrich film is much more twisted and cynical than anything Spillane ever conceived. At its core is not just caustic humor but an uneasiness about the value of human life and the nature of the universe." - Mike La Salle, “Kiss Me Deadly Still Packs Punch”  San Francisco Chronicle 6 October 1995

   The film Kiss Me Deadly can be appreciated on at least three levels. The first is that of a traditional detective mystery with a flawed but likable [anti]-hero, femmes fatales, bad guys, ineffectual police, gunplay and a fistfight or two. The second is that of the cultural-historical, in which the film both reflects and critiques American society in the mid-1950s and the immediately preceding years. This kind of analysis usually stresses the film’s Cold War backdrop and its subversive, contrarian portrayal of American culture as dark, nasty, brutal, and selfishly materialistic, in contrast to the bland optimism and wholesome imagery put forth by official sources at the time. A third approach is simply that of cinematic aesthetics, which emphasizes things like editing and the nightmarish L. A. gothic photography. It's the second and third perspectives that have inspired all the critical huffing and puffing, and one can only wonder how much commentary there would be had the film followed the novel’s basic plot and the mysterious container been filled with drugs, and had the principal antagonists been mob thugs instead of agents of a mysterious foreign power.

   
When we first meet Mike Hammer in the film Kiss Me Deadly, we don’t know much about him except that he’s youngish, good looking, drives a sports car, wears cool clothes, and is quick with the verbal comeback. He's also cranky with the mysterious blonde Christina for almost causing him to wreck his car. But it’s the very frazzled, half-naked Christina who fills us in on some of Hammer’s character particulars. In a wonderful bit of proto-feminist analysis, she immediately pegs him as narcissistic, self-centered, immature, and a little too fond of his toys and creature comforts, observations that are all spot-on. In fact, she turns out to be the best detective in the film -- after all, she’s the one wearing the trench coat. But the most important part of this opening scene is that he gives her a lift. He also shields her from the watchful eyes of snooping authorities (but ultimately can’t save her from the bad guys). All of this may hint of a chivalrous, even sentimental streak we don’t usually associate with this character. But then again, he may just like what he sees; he has an eye for the ladies, and they for him. Whatever his motivations, Hammer’s small kindness to Christina is the doorway through which we enter the labyrinthine universe of Kiss Me Deadly, a multi-textured vision of phantasmagoric resonances, principal among them being the various shadings of the Hammer psyche.

   Foremost among this cinematic Hammer’s shadow side is the way he makes his living, something the Feds who interview him sniff out right away. His shtick is really a con game with blackmail as its currency. Hammer is, in the lingo of the time, a bedroom dick. He specializes in divorce cases, distracting compliant wives while he sics his hopelessly loyal secretary and sometimes girlfriend Velda on the husbands. And one way or another he gets the goods, allowing him to enjoy a Fifties Playboy fantasy lifestyle, a far cry from the dreary existential emptiness of a Bogart or Dick Powell only a decade prior. He has a spacious, ultra-modern bachelor pad furnished with abstract art and the latest gadgets, he drives the coolest cars, wears tailored suits, and listens to the best jazz radio stations. Velda shares in the loot; she dresses in 50s chic clothes, lives in a trendy apartment, and in her spare time studies modern dance.

   [Post]modern, nihilistic, and devoid of sentiment or sentimentality, this Hammer’s ethos is a long way from Raymond Chandler’s compassionate knight and Dashiell Hammett’s dispassionate operative. His motivation is pure mercenary self-interest; for him the payoff is literally the payoff -- how and when he gets paid. This über materialist version of the Hammer character suggests the success of novelist and Hammer creator Mickey Spillane, who laughed all the way to the bank while his critics howled. Befitting a character who’s often referred to in Neanderthalesque terms, KMD’s Hammer is a kind of missing link between the traditional gumshoe of the Forties and the James Bond figure of the swinging Sixties [1]. He’s also something of a sadist, but then again nobody’s perfect. If you ask me he’s much more of a Bond than a Philip Marlowe, and KMD - while retaining all the trappings of a detective story - has more of an espionage feel, complete with duplicitous females, aforementioned fast cars and gadgets, eminently Cold War-esque MacGuffin, and ersatz intellectual arch-villain. Because of his extra-legal style, disdain for authorities, and fondness for violence and intimidation, some commentators see in him a proto-Dirty Harry figure. In any case, it would seem that the Hammer of KMD lacks the chivalry and personal code of a Philip Marlowe -- but then again does he?

   "The Ralph Meeker character was a sleazy PI, but after his encounter with Christina, and his near-death at the hands of her killers, he is a changed man. Is it so strange that he wants to hunt down those who tried to kill him? Is he driven solely by his need to track down the The Big What’s-it? Or maybe he is haunted by Christina’s admonition to not forget her? So he slaps around a couple of guys, snaps a vinyl record, and crushes the hand of the creep at the morgue? Is he any more immoral than the Feds? Gimme a break." -- Tony D’Ambra Is Mike Hammer Really Such a Bad Guy?

Is Hammer a closet liberal?


   The Mike Hammer of the novels is politically an arch-conservative, with a generous helping of the old-fashioned vigilante thrown in for good measure. He hates liberals, gays, commies, bleeding heart judges, and all those who sympathize with them. Rather than relying on the vagaries of the American legal system, he prefers to dish out rough and ready justice to the to the well-deserving low-lifes and effete Red appeasers he comes into contact with.

 

You know you've arrived when you're
staying at the Jalisco Hotel.

 By contrast, the film version of KMD doesn’t have an overtly political agenda. Yes, Cold War paranoia is ever lurking in the shadows and the bad guys are in confederacy with some vague foreign power, but this is not a message movie [2], and, one is tempted to add, this accounts for much of its power and resonance. To wit, if KMD is a Cold War parable with a McCarthyite subtext, as it’s sometimes described, then is Hammer a victim or victimizer? It hardly matters; Hammer’s apolitical worldview even extends to conventional patriotism. Near the end of the film when he defers to the authorities it’s not out of any sense of civic duty (don’t bother waving the flag at him), it’s that he finally understands - several dead bodies later -  that he’s out of his league.

    If there is a contrarian thread running through KMD, then it’s expressed through the people Hammer hangs out with and way he relates to them. As much as anything else, it’s the positive images of women, immigrants, African-Americans and poor people, along with Hammer’s getting on with them so well, especially the folks at the jazz club, boxing gym, and auto repair shop, that gives the film much of its leftist edge. Skeptics might say that Hammer’s particular choice of friends doesn’t make him a liberal any more than his fondness for classical music, modern art and poetry does. But then again maybe it does. How many movies from the 40s and 50s can you think of where the white main character hung out at an all-black jazz club and a boxing gym with a black manager? Is it a coincidence that the only people Hammer has any chemistry with are the non-WASPs and/or the powerless and dispossessed? Hammer certainly has zero chemistry with any of society’s power elite, be they the mafia don, FBI, or effete villain-in-chief, all of whom, coincidentally, hound him with about equal vigor. Despite his trendy lifestyle, Hammer’s proletarian roots are never very far beneath the surface. 

   Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to Hammer’s treatment of women in the film, which on the whole is rather gentlemanly, thus belying his supposed misogynistic bonafides [3]. To be sure, he rebuffs their spirited advances, most notably that of said mafia don’s alcoholic, nymphomaniac half-sister, whom Hammer gently lectures on the merits of playing hard to get. All this has inspired some commentators to read into KMD a gay subtext, which seems to me wildly off the mark. This Hammer is conspicuously straight, oozing a conventional machismo which is coupled with a propensity for male violence that’s shocking even by noirish standards. Other sources have commented that he’s so obsessed with the now unreachable Christina and solving the riddle of her death that he can’t respond to other women.

   Whatever the case, and regardless of his actual ideological, or for that matter psycho-sexual leanings, based on the clues that we’re given we can infer that Hammer’s sensibilities are that of a mild progressive, especially in the context of the mid-1950s. Indeed, compared to his literary antecedent, he’s a flaming liberal. Mickey Spillane must be turning over in his grave as I pen these blasphemous words.

   And we could go on and on . . . as referenced above, writers have gone on and on. Such a great movie, and so much to say. We haven’t even talked about the mid-1950s L.A. backdrop and those creepy Bunker Hill houses; or the great supporting cast, especially Albert Dekker as Dr. Soberin, Cloris Leachman as Christina, Gaby Rodgers as Lily/Gabrielle, Paul Stewart as Carl Evello, and Maxine Cooper as Velda; or cinematographer Ernest Laszlo’s inspired work which makes Citizen Kane seem like just another movie. Speaking of which, what about KMD’s historical status? Is it the last film noir, or the first neo-noir, or maybe simply the first ‘modern’ film. Whatever the case, KMD is eerily prescient as it anticipated cinematic trends that appeared later in the decade (it was reportedly a favorite of the French New Wave directors), and moreover cautioned us on the win-at-all-costs ethos of the late Sixties, as well as the capitalist excesses, materialistic self-indulgences, and surveillance state gestalt of our own times.

    But there’s only so much bending of a reader’s ear we can do and keep a blog post within reasonable limits. Some final thoughts, however. True to the detective tradition, the convoluted story arrives at a more or less satisfying conclusion. To be sure, it all comes about extra-legally and at a horrific cost to Hammer and those around him. Was it worth it? Well, maybe and maybe not, but there weren’t a lot of good alternatives. As Bill R. writes, and please excuse the rather lengthy quote :

 

    Aldrich’s Hammer is an evolving beast, a man whose ape-like savagery slowly gives way to a human confusion, grief, even regret, and a willingness to put himself in harm’s way not just in a search for answers and skulls to bust, but in an attempt to save Velda (Maxine Cooper), a woman he cares about. This is not something critics of Kiss Me Deadly tend to allow for, in their rush to condemn the film’s version of Mike Hammer as completely as they’re able to.
   Regardless, I still have to question Aldrich’s stated anti-vigilante motivation here, because where are we at film’s end? With justice, of a very bizarre and chilling sort, but it was not only not brought about by the police (if he knows so much, where was Wesley Addy’s judgmental cop when Hammer was braving nuclear fire?) but might not have occurred without Hammer. If he’d taken no action in this, the Great Whatsit would still be in the wrong hands, the same greed and betrayal would still fire the cylinders of a certain dumb psychotic blonde - a woman not entirely unlike Hammer, minus his sudden burst of self-awareness - and Hammer’s cop friends would still be sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. Dumb sadistic ape he may be, but at least Mike Hammer took his shot. The Great WhatsIt

   Reportedly director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides wanted to create in Hammer a greedy, opportunistic, out-of-control thug. For roughly the first half of the film this is pretty much what they got, but as the story progressed, in spite of themselves, it would seem, they ended up with something closer to a knight.


style ****
substance ****

Trivia

Gaby Rodgers was a girlhood friend of Anne Frank.
Maxine Cooper also appeared in the TV detective series Philip Marlowe, Peter Gunn, 
    and Richard Diamond, Private Detective
 

 

 

  [1] Another fictional character often cited as a transitional figure was TV’s 1950s private detective Peter Gunn, who had many similarities to the KMD Hammer except that he was smarter, smoother, and far less inclined to violence.
 
  [2] KMD’s leftist slant is expressed in both socio-economic as well as racial terms. It can’t be any accident that in this film the black and ethnic characters are cool and sympathetic, while everybody else (i.e. the White power elite) is nasty, sleazy, corrupt and decidedly un-hip, and this would include even marginal members of the dominant class, most conspicuously the ethically challenged Hammer and Velda. In fact, aside from Christina, who disappears from the movie early on, Hammer and Velda are the only white folks in KMD worth rooting for, and even in their cases we have our doubts. On the other hand, if there’s a topical political message to KMD, then it’s got to be the dangers of nuclear radiation, but then again this same message could apply to half the movies made in the 1950s, so no points here.

   [3] In this incarnation Hammer is supposedly a self centered sadist worried about little else than getting paid, preserving his sweet lifestyle and satisfying his criminal impulses. Yet throughout the film he’s pushing away the very women who come onto him, and at the same time putting himself in harm’s way to help them out, even when he’s under no obligation to do so.
   In the one miscalculation in her otherwise brilliant analysis of Hammer’s psyche, Christina comments that he’s the kind of man who never gives in a relationship, only takes. But in a perverse irony, throughout the film Hammer does little but give to Christina, through his obsession of her memory and his desire to atone for her death. His apparently opportunistic quest for a big payoff may in fact be more of a penance; his  fascination with her is due to his feelings of responsibility for, if not exactly causing her death, then in not sufficiently protecting her from her abductors and eventual assassins.
    Hammer's chivalry is misplaced only once, with the psychotic femme fatale Lily Carver, who in any case is eventually dispatched, not by Hammer, but by the radioactive flames which consume her as we watch with grim approval. Lily's violent demise notwithstanding, the gentlemanly side of Hammer is further reinforced in that his slapping and other rough tactics are reserved only for the men in KMD, most of whom have it coming.

   Much has been made of the four principal women characters as not being very sexy, a fair enough comment. But maybe this is a nod to their modern-ness. These women are capable, strong, independent and eminently practical; they don’t have to depend upon the old fashioned wiles of an Ava Gardner or Jane Greer. To wit, Velda sweats a lot, another thing a traditional noir temptress doesn’t do, on-screen anyway. Speaking of Velda, yes, Hammer pimps her out to seduce husbands to get the goods in his sleazy divorce cases, but we get the impression that Velda isn't overly thrilled about her role as Hammer's all-too-convenient femme fatale of choice.

   The only other female character of note (not counting the cheesecake beauties who appear in the swimming pool scene) is the exquisite Mady Comfort, who appears as the torch singer at the blues club. Arguably the most beautiful woman in the film, she only appears for a minute or two, though sometimes in the background we hear her singing the film’s unofficial theme song, “I’d Rather Have the Blues Than What I’ve Got.” (I like her rendition better than Nat King Cole’s). She’s a black woman, but the supposedly reactionary, misogynistic Mike Hammer treats her with as much, perhaps more, respect than any other woman in the picture, another reminder that all is often not what is seems in KMD.

Distinto Amanecer

Distinto Amanecer (Another Dawn). Mexico City: Films Mundiales, S.A., 1943. Productor, Emilio Gómez Muriel; director, Julio Bracho. With Andrea Palma, Pedro Armendáriz, Alberto Galán, Beatriz Ramos. Based on the play La Vida Conyugal by Max Aub. 

style ***1/2

substance ***1/2

Distinto Amenecer is probably as good a Hitchcock movie you’ll ever see by a director not named Alfred Hitchcock. It essentially takes the Hitchcockian chase story and sets it in an incredibly atmospheric Mexico City in the early 1940s. The basic idea is reminiscent of The 39 Steps, especially the opening scenes at the theater which bring to mind Richard Hanney being cornered by the police at the Palladium in the latter film. 

But another, even more important, quality of Distinto Amamencer is that it may well be the first film noir [1]; its release in 1943 places it a full year ahead of the traditional noir kickoff year of 1944, during which Murder My Sweet and Double Indemnity in particular closed the deal as full-blown examples of the style. 

It certainly has all the hallmarks of noir: crime story; memorable femme fatale; claustrophobic feeling; threatening urban setting; nightclub; sinister looking bad guys who menace the heroine and pursue the hero; and most of all the great nighttime, off-kilter photography of cinematographic legend Gabriel Figueroa. And make no mistake, visually the film is very dark indeed.

Distinto Amanecer takes place almost totally at night, and is beautifully shot and lit in eminently noirish style. However, the most unforgettable image, alas all too fleeting, takes place in the daytime, at dawn to be exact, nearing the end of the film as a  forlorn Julieta (Andrea Palma) walks into traffic while the tall buildings surround her somwhat menacingly.

Distinto is also probably Andrea Palma’s finest hour along with the below-mentioned Mujer del Puerto [2]. And it’s also good to see a youthful, charismatic Pedro Armendáriz; he and Palma have terrific screen chemistry throughout. My only criticism of the film is that at a leisurely 108 minutes the film feels a little longish.


[1] It’s the first Mexican film noir if we don’t count the proto-noir La Mujer del Puerto from 1934 (wouldn’t that be something if a Mexican noir anticipated Hollywood by a decade!). Of course we can go on and on about the origins and evolution of noir, and indeed writers have gone on and on. Although Double Indemnity is often cited as the first case where all the noir elements combine in a definitive whole, there were lots of prior films which flirted with the noir aesthetic, Stranger on the Third Floor from 1940 being a much referenced example. But all this is perhaps best left for a future posting. Whatever the case, Mujer del Puerto is also a great Andrea Palma vehicle and probably ranks with Distinto as her best leading role before she settled into the more mature and matronly characters she essentially played for the rest of her career.

[2] In Distinto Palma plays a woman who leads a double life: respectable wife by day and B girl at night. This seems to be a favorite [sub]plot theme in Mexican cinema, that of an upstanding middle-class or upper-class woman with a dark secret, usually running a nightclub and/or place of prostitution. At least two other Palma films, Casa de la Zorra and Aventurera, use the same idea. In the latter she reprises the shady role but in Casa plays a more virtuous character.

La Mujer del Puerto 

Elegant heavy

gone and sadly forgotten

    Think the Continental charm and sophistication, if not quite the looks, of Paul Henried. Combine this with a little of the oozing caddishness of George Saunders, and throw in a touch of Lionel Atwill intensity, and you get an idea of our unlikely hero. Ivan Triesault was born in Estonia in 1898, and he and his family moved to the U.S. in 1916 [1]. His biography mentions early training in dance as well as acting, and this might explain his aristocratic carriage and precise movements which served him well in the many Prussian roles which were his bread and butter for the better part of four decades.


     His acting resumé lists a number of supporting roles in the early Forties, alas many occurring in less-than-memorable items like Cry of the Werewolf. However, and mirroring the conspicuous post-Casablanca non-success of the aforementioned Henried, Triesault’s career peaked a bit too soon in mid-decade, after which he was consigned to character roles which were usually little more than extended cameos, the German bodyguard/assassin in Five Fingers being one example. 

    But let us return to 1946 and his supreme cinematic moment (albeit in a supporting role) as the head of the South American Nazi spy ring in Notorious [2]. (Did a bad guy ever look as good in a tuxedo?) Triesault is simply brilliant in the role, projecting his character’s icy charm which barely conceals the menace beneath [3]. His villainous bonafides are established early on as he orders the execution of one of his co-collaborators, an important scientist no less, all on account of a minor disturbance at a dinner party. His powers of intimidation are such that even the super suave, and very rich, Claude Rains and his wicked-witch-of-the-west mother defer to him, cringing in abject terror at his gaze. Speaking of gazes, that last staircase scene -- if a look could kill, Claude Rains would have been taken out on the spot -- heck, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, too, half the audience. 

  But this memorable performance did not provide the springboard for other, more substantial roles, quite the opposite. As early as 1950 he was appearing uncredited in bit parts, a typical example being the owner of the photography shop in D.O.A. It may well have been that his rather sinister looks and thick Central European accent simply precluded him from extending his character range. In any case, by the early Fifties he had settled into typecasting as urbane European diplomats, scientists or military officers.

  Along the way there was the occasional, and all too fleeting, juicy part, one of the best being that of the pompous auteur director in The Bad and the Beautiful. Then there was the Soviet general in the über-jingoistic Cold War thriller Jet Pilot (his Nazi screen persona could morph into a Commie if the script called for it). 

  Doubtless he was in more than a few bad movies. But ultimately it could said that he never gave a bad performance, always the thorough and reliable professional (the sunnier side, if you will, of the stiff, severe characters it was his lot to impersonate), and deserving of more recognition in the literature than he currently receives.

  [1] As much as he was a seemingly omnipresent figure in old movies and, later, TV programs, there’s scant little, purely biographical, information available on Triesault, either online or otherwise. Does anyone know more about his biography?
  [2] The lines of authority in the conspiracy group are a little vague. Here’s my take: because of his wealth and corporate connections, Rains is the titular head, but in important operational matters - the elimination of a problematic co-conspirator, for instance - the Triesault character is obviously running the show by way of his unique position as villain-in-chief and principal enforcer. Triesault is so good in the part of Eric Mathis that he almost upstages the better-known, more experienced Rains. Moreover, he literally gets in the last word, delivering the film's memorable closing line: "Alex, will you come in please? I wish to talk to you." But ultimately, in a cruel irony, Triesault was a little too good in the role; he essentially played variations of this screen persona for the rest of his career.
  [3] The character of Mathis in Notorious is a mixture of Old World elegance and 20th century ruthless efficiency; even during his most villainous moments he still manages to have note-perfect manners. In a lightly macabre, eminently Hitchcockian touch, as he’s leaving with the doomed conspirator he takes the time to ask Sebastian (Claude Rains) to be sure to thank his mother for the excellent dinner and to tell her that the dessert was superb.

Return to Glennascaul

Return to Glennascaul : a story that is told in Dublin, [Royle presents a Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, Dublin Gate Theatre production]. 23 minutes. Screenplay and direction by Hilton Edwards; editor, Joseph Sterling; music, Hans Gunther Stumpf. Shot on location in Dublin, 1951. With Orson Welles, Michael Laurence, Shelah Richards, Helena Hughes. Narrated by Orson Welles.

"Until the day break and the shadows flee away." Song of Solomon 2-17

I first saw Return to Glennascaul in an art movie theatre in Albuquerque about 15 years ago. It was coupled with, as I recall, The Lady from Shanghai. Later I saw it a few more times on VHS and DVD. But first, a confession: the whole thing has such a Welles look and feel that I naturally assumed he was the director, only later to learn that this was not the case, though it’s generally assumed that he had some input into Hilton Edwards’ otherwise splendid direction. In any case, I took to it immediately, especially the noir-like aspects -- voice-over narration, shadowy photography, femmes fatales [of a sort]. 

But in the end, in style and presentation anyway, it’s really an old-fashioned ghost story, notable more for its irresistibly gloomy atmosphere (love the harp music in the background!) than polish of execution. It occurs to me that it would have made a perfect segment for a Twilight Zone episode but to my knowledge it was never shown on American TV, in the 1950s anyway.

I don’t have a lot more to add regarding the substance of the film*. Kimberly Lindbergs  has penned an excellent review at CINEBEATS, and I find myself in harmony with her opinion that, for all its spookiness, Glennascaul is at heart a romance. A meditation on love and death, if you will, and a search for infinite redemption across time and space - and mortality itself - similar in spirit to films like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Uninvited (was the 1940s the golden age of ghost movies?). And of course the film’s Ireland pedigree conjures up memories of the Tristan and Isolde legend.

One criticism : the filmmakers seem to go out of their way to stress the story’s Irish bonafides, but all the characters [Welles excepted] speak with proper, upper-class English accents. But this is such a minor complaint for this otherwise immensely enjoyable curiosity, at once eccentric and haunting, in more ways than one.

* Should I keep referring to Glennascaul as a ‘film,’ since it only runs 23 minutes?

Changes

    Some readers might have noticed a change in this blog’s title [1]. I thought Mexico Noir for a title was a bit too narrowly focused, thus I settled on Caffè Noir, which seemed a good choice as it's a nice umbrella for various arts and cultural topics. Moreover, the phrase combines two of my favorite things, coffee and film noir, along with overtones of the whole coffee house gestalt and all its attendant associations. The process also led me to some revealing literature on the mysteries of blog titles and what makes them work, or not.

    BTW I was a little surprised to find that Caffè Noir apparently has not been used as a blog title - touch wood. In any case, as before most of the posts will be on film noir with perhaps an emphasis on Mexican films from the Golden Age. BTW2: unlike Amazon, but like Mr. Halliwell, I have a one through four-star system of rating movies. Thus: * not-so-good; ** ok; *** good/very good; **** awesomely.

    [1] There have also been some fairly significant layout/design changes, though I'm still fussing over the blog's exact look. I switch back & forth between a dark background as befits the blog's title, and a white backdrop, which is easier to read. As a compromise I may ultimately settle on some shading of gray. In either case the http address will remain the same : http://mexnoir.blogspot.com/.