DVD Review: Columbia Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1
Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation Presents Five Restored Noir Titles
Oct 30, 2009
The thoughtfully-produced five-disc set's generous features help explain and put into context the five movies, all of which (except The Big Heat) were low-budget B-pictures.
These beautifully-restored black-and-white films boast digitally re-mastered audio and video, thanks to Martin Scorsese's non-profit preservation group the Film Foundation.
They may not be the most recognizable titles in the noir canon. But these movies are smart, fast and representative of 50s noir as the genre was fading to black.
The set's films include:
The Sniper (1952)
This Stanley Kramer production, directed by Edward Dmytryk (Murder, My Sweet) is a psychological study of an alienated "sex criminal" who targets women. It's carries a healthy dose of Kramer's cinematic social conscience.
Arthur Franz somehow seems sympathetic as a dry cleaners deliveryman whose rage against women is too easily explained as the result of a lack of motherly love.
Among featured players is the great B-movie star Marie Windsor (The Narrow Margin), playing against type as a good-natured club pianist targeted by Franz. Frank Faylen (Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life) plays a police commander and Richard Kiley (Blackboard Jungle, Man of La Mancha) is a police psychologist.
True to its B-movie roots, the film features magnificent location shots throughout San Francisco. Indeed, the city is as much a character as any of the actors.
And it's fun that Noir author Eddie Muller's commentary track often discusses Franz's character, named Eddie Miller.
Dmytryk's striking final shot stays with you a long time.
The Big Heat (1953)
This is the big-budget noir justly famous for the horrifying moment when mob moll Gloria Graham is disfigured by her lover, Lee Marvin, who tosses scalding hot coffee across the left side of her face.
Fritz Lang directed an exceptional cast, although the least-involving performance may belong to leading man Ford, playing another of his stolid, upright-citizen roles.
Still, he lets loose as a police detective with very personal reasons for going after the mobster played by Alexander Scourby.
Gloria Graham and Lee Marvin Stand Out in The Sniper
But players who really impress are Grahame and Marvin.
As Lee Marvin's beautiful, abused moll, Graham shows great range -- alternately playful, mocking, funny and tender. It may be her best performance.
And with his kinetic energy, Marvin practically leaps off the screen.
Jeanette Nolan is great fun as the villainous widow of a cop whose suicide opens the picture.
Fritz Lang Brought Grand Style to Project
Lang's highly-stylized lighting betrays his expressionist roots in Germany -- especially when the light pours through window shade slats to form mock-prison stripes across the characters.
Filmmakers Michael Mann and Martin Scorsese offer their analyses in individual featurettes.
Five Against the House (1955)
B-movie master Phil Karlson directed this little gem about a casino heist that pre-dated the big-budget casino caper Ocean's Eleven by five years.
Here, a quartet of law students conspires to rip off Harold's Club in Reno.
Kim Novak Plays Club Singer
The biggest name in the cast is Kim Novak, at the peak of her beauty and in just her fifth movie role. She plays a club singer in love with one of the conspirators.
The law students include "nice guy" Guy Madison, "psycho Korean War vet" Brian Keith, "adorably funny" Alvy Moore (maybe best known for TV's Green Acres) and "brainy" Kerwin Matthews, in his film debut.
TV's Cannon Has Small But Pivotal Role
William Conrad (70s TV detective Cannon and a well-known character actor and voiceover artist) plays a casino money handler cornered by the bandits.
Karlson brings great energy and pacing to the film. Yet, the story is hampered by the fact that in an 84-minute caper movie, the characters don't even begin discussing the heist until 35 minutes in.
And the ending is strange -- as if the police look the other way over the complicity of at least three characters.
The only extra goodie on the Five Against the House disc is the film's original trailer.
The Lineup (1958)
Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, many others) directed this taut story of drug trafficking in San Francisco.
This one features dual narratives -- cops trying to catch drug smugglers as the villains drive around, trying to recover packets of heroin brought into the U.S. by unsuspecting dupes.
Eli Wallach Plays Vicious Henchman
The key villains are Eli Wallach, fresh off Baby Doll, co-stars with Robert Keith, the real-life father of actor Brian Keith.
They may be hardened criminals, but the two have a nice rapport in comic relief moments when Keith is trying to help Wallach's character with his grammar.
These nice touches are from screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, who co-wrote Five Against the House.
San Francisco Locations Look Great in Film
Director of Photography Hal Mohr's fluid camera makes great use of San Francisco locations, where this film (like The Sniper) was shot in an almost documentary style.
The cast includes Richard Jaeckel as the villains' dim-witted driver, Raymond Bailey (TV's Beverly Hillbillies) as a dope smuggling dupe and the colorless Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer as police investigators.
There's also a commentary track by Eddie Muller and crime author James Ellroy, and the featurette The Influence of Noir with (Memento and The Dark Knight director) Christopher Nolan.
Murder by Contract (1958)
Within three years of playing an eccentric hitman in this late-cycle noir, Vince Edwards was a TV star, as Dr. Ben Casey. Here, he's a neophyte killer assigned to rub out a woman scheduled to testify at a mobster's trial.
Directing this late noir entry was Irving Lerner, who later directed Edwards on Ben Casey.
Cinematographer Lucien Ballard (Ride the Wild Country, The Wild Bunch, many others) shot the film in just seven days, with a stark style and a good deal of the Los Angeles landscape that brings a sense of reality to the picture.
Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics Volume 1, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, carries a suggested list price of $59.95. It hits the street Mon., Nov. 2, 2009.
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