NFR Project: 'The Killers' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “The Killers”

Dir: Robert Siodmak

Scr: Anthony Veiller

Pho: Woody Bredell

Ed: Arthur Hilton

Premiere: Aug. 30, 1946

103 min.

Who’s a better film noir director than Robert Siodmak (1900-1973) ? No one.

The premier practitioner of American noir was a German refugee. After film work in his native land, the Jewish Siodmak escaped first to Paris and then Hollywood. (His brother Curt invented the Wolf Man, and wrote Donovan’s Brain and I Walked With A Zombie.)

Siodmak was a jack of all trades, but beginning with Phantom Lady in 1944, he began to specialize in noirs, using deep shadows, harsh backlighting, and other effects in light of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s. This approach turned Siodmak’s landscapes into perilous and unsettling interiors and night shots, a twilight world in which morals are frayed at the edges. Siodmak directed at least nine noir films in his Hollywood days, setting standards for the genre.

The Killers is his masterpiece, sometimes and somewhat jokingly referred to as “the Citizen Kane of noir films,” in that it is primarily composed of flashbacks. It’s a free adaptation of a 1927 short story by Ernest Hemingway.  It’s the first film of a 33-year-old Burt Lancaster, and the first starring role for 24-year-old Ava Gardner.

Lancaster is the Swede, the mild-mannered garage mechanic who’s the victim when two killers (Charles McGraw and William Conrad, perfect) come to his small town to blow him away. “I did something wrong . . . once,” he says when his coworker Nick tries to warn him that the bad guys are coming. Swede does nothing. The men enter, fill him with lead, leave.

An insurance investigator, Riordan (Edmond O’Brien), is tasked with finding the beneficiary for Swede’s life insurance policy. Riordan finds that the Swede is really Ole Anderson, a former boxer turned petty crook. Working his way through the chain of witnesses, he reconstructs Swede’s downfall via flashback. It turns out that the Swede was part of a big payroll heist, $250,000 that he loses, snatches back, and loses again in short order.

Riordan rubs the criminal kingpin behind it all the wrong way, so he becomes a target for murder as well. The film is taut, fast-moving – Riordan races to solve the mystery before the dark forces overtake him.

Meanwhile, we get a look at the tragic Swede, played sensitively by Lancaster. He’s a big lummox, just the kind of guy to get in over his head due to a dame. Gardner plays a classic femme fatale, duplicitous yet smashingly beautiful. There are great supporting actors such as Jeff Corey as “Blinky” Franklin and Sam Levene as Lt. Lubinsky.

Justice is served, but Swede remains the classic noir protagonist – ill-fated, morally flawed, none too bright, easily swayed by a woman. It was a formula as close to classic tragedy as American film would get until the mythic Westerns of Anthony Mann (1950-1958).

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Let There Be Light.

NFR Project: 'John Henry and the Inky-Poo' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “John Henry and the Inky-Poo’

Dir: George Pal

Scr: Robert Monroe, Latham Ovens

Pho: John S. Abbott

Premiere: Sept. 6, 1946

7 min.

From 1942 to 1946, stop-motion animator George Pal crafted a series of cartoons featuring Jasper, a young Black boy. These creations were not welcomed by the African American community, as they were deemed to be racist.

Pal was appalled to be so designated, and he decided to do something about it. Using his stop-motion techniques, he told the story of the great Black folk hero John Henry, a steel-driver on the railroad who fought and beat a machine designed to replace him (here referred to as the Inky-Poo). The film is noticeably NOT racist – it tells John Henry’s story in an inspiring and balanced way, and does not stoop to any stereotyping.

The result was well-received, and nominated for an Oscar. It marked the continuing development of the battle against racism in America.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Killers.

NFR Project: 'it's a Wonderful Life' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Dir: Frank Capra

Scr: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, Jo Swerling

Pho: Joseph Walker, Joseph Biroc

Ed: William Hornbeck

Premiere: Dec. 20, 1946

131 min.

This movie’s fate was much like that of its protagonist – it was initially thought a failure, but turned out to be a big success.

When director Frank Capra returned from military duty in World War II, he looked for an inspirational text to adapt. He found Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1939 story “The Greatest Gift,” and set teams of writers to work on it. The result is the most “Capraesque” of his film fables, and his most popular film.

It’s set in beautiful little Bedford Falls, NY, on Christmas Eve. Small-town banker George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has lost $8,000 of the depositors’ finds and faces the arrival of the bank examiner. Convinced that he will be prosecuted and lose everything, George drives out to a nearby bridge and contemplates throwing himself into the river.

However – the angels have been debating what to do about his dilemma. They review his life – one in which he found his own dreams thwarted over and over as he consistently did the right thing for others. His nemesis, the mean old Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) also schemes to bring him down.

A junior angel, Clarence (Henry Travers) is sent down to Earth to intercede with George and give him hope. Frustrated to the point of despair, George wishes he had never been born. Clarence takes him at his word, and shows him what life would have been like if he had not. The results are terrible – Bedford Falls is now “Pottersville.” Poverty, crime, and corruption abide there; people whose lives George improved are unredeemed, miserable.

George decides he wants to live after all, despite the consequences. He returns home to find that the whole town has chipped in to make up for the lost money. Clarence gets his wings, and George learns that “no man is a failure who has friends.”

This paean to the impact of even an ordinary life is deeply moving, and its message of redemption still resonates.

The movie was unsuccessful initially. In 1974, its copyright lapsed and local stations began programming it. (It was a favorite at my regional public TV station.) Frequent showings led to increased popularity, until it finally became acclaimed as one of the greatest American films.

Its message is grounded in Capra’s populist sentiments, in which ordinary people have superior wisdom to the fat cats, in which democratic values are highly touted, and in which simple human kindness is elevated to saintly status.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: John Henry and the Inky-Poo.