July 2015 - MDP Film Journal

Los (James Benning, 2001)

July found me traveling to Alaska for some R&R at my in-laws house and beginning a new viewing project: a study of film noir. I have seen most of the main texts of the genre but have never spent the time to really get my mind around what the genre is and with any clarity or precision. I created a list to guide my genre viewing in that vein which can be found on my letterboxd. It is easy to see that Los Angeles continued to be a major theme of my viewing, as was a large part of the impetus behind the genre study.

With all the vacation time for movie watching, it was a very productive month of viewings.

Best of July 2015
1.  Los (James Benning, 2001)
2.  The Wolves (Kineto Shindô, 1955)
3.  Detective Story (William Wyler, 1951)
4.  Park Row (Samuel Fuller, 1952)
5.  Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann, 1949)
6.  Union Station (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
7.  Crime Wave (André de Toth, 1954)
8.  La Petite Lise (Jean Grémillon, 1930)
9.  Bitter Lake (Adam Curtis, 2015)
10.  The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946)

Favorite Rewatches of July 2015
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948)

Films watched in July: 24
Rewatches in July: 5
Total tally for 2015: 125

(I'm borrowing this format idea from Curtsies and Hand Grenades.)

Film Noir Analysis: Crime Wave (1954)

Crime Wave (André de Toth, 1954)
Steve Lacey is a guy who just wants a quiet life. An ex-con who has done hard time and now has found a decent job at the airfield and a wife who is loyal to her reformed/reforming man, Lacey knows there is not much open to him outside of trying to build his own American dream. But he also knows even that hangs by a thread. The constant calls from guys he knew once in his life plague him – men who seek him out for the very reasons he makes a good honest citizen – he’s loyal, hard-working and always knows the score. Lacey is doomed because no matter what he does, he can’t completely hide from those he once knew (even though he tries).

Night Movies - A Film Noir Watchlist

The following are the 50 films I am planning on viewing for a personal study of the film noir, with an additional 10 others I am planning on rewatching. This study will take place over the last months of 2015. 

I often lose steam with these types of planned viewing efforts, though I am hopeful to follow through this time because this is a genre I have intended to study for some time but have not gotten around to doing any more than a cursory pass on most of the canonical classics. My 50 planned viewings include both accepted genre classics and underrated tertiary noirs that deserve more love and attention. 

While I am still getting my head around the genre itself, I know one unique focus I will be taking with these films is a particularly keen interest in the geography, location photography, and urban settings of these films. Invigorated by the geographic explorations and investigations of Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), I am curious to see how many of these films deal with their geographical setting and in what ways the story and locations are tied together. 

I am a bit of a geography nut, so this type of approach is really fascinating to me. Noir strikes me as one of the early genres that more consistently gets out of the studio into the world of urban location shooting (often Los Angeles, considering the ease of proximity), so I am very curious to see what how that technical changes affects the films being made. Many of the films I have chosen to view were planned with this thesis in mind. 

50 Films Noir to View
711 Ocean Drive (Joseph M. Newman, 1950)
Angel’s Flight (Raymond Nassour & K.W. Richardson, 1965)
Armored Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer, 1950) 
Autumn Leaves (Robert Aldrich, 1956) 
Beware, My Lovely (Harry Horner, 1952) 
The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)
The Big Knife (Robert Aldrich, 1955) DVD
The Bigamist (Ida Lupino, 1953)
Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961)
Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947)
Boomerang! (Elia Kazan, 1947)
Border Incident (Anthony Mann, 1949)
Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1947)
Caged (John Cromwell, 1950)
Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)
Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962)
The Chase (Arthur Ripley, 1946)
Crime Wave (André de Toth, 1954)
The Crimson Kimono (Samuel Fuller, 1959)
Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949)
D.O.A. (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
Detective Story (William Wyler, 1950)
Edge of Doom (Mark Robson, 1950)
Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)
Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950)
The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953)
Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson, 1952)
The Killers (Don Siegel, 1964)
Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl, 1945)
M (Joseph Losey, 1951)
Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)
The Money Trap (Burt Kennedy, 1965)
Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947)
Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, 1947)
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946)
Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann, 1949)
Ride the Pink Horse (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
Riff-Raff (Ted Tetzlaff, 1947)
Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955)
Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945)
Side Street (Anthony Mann, 1949)
Somewhere in the Night (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946)
The Tall Target (Anthony Mann, 1951)
They Made Me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947)
Tomorrow Is Another Day (Felix E. Feist, 1951)
Underworld U.S.A. (Samuel Fuller, 1961)
Union Station (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949)

Ten Overdue Rewatches
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945)
The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948)
T-Men (Anthony Mann, 1947)
Thieves Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949)
Whirlpool (Otto Preminger, 1949)