Toi… Le Venin (Night is Not for Sleep) (1958)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Toi… Le Venin (Night is Not for Sleep) (1958) – R. Hossein

Last night, I thought I might have stumbled onto a forgotten French noir gem. The first few minutes held promise: a drifter (Robert Hossein, who also directed) is alone on the road at night when he is offered a lift by a mysterious blonde in a white Cadillac. Instead of driving on, she pulls over, seduces him, and then kicks him out of the car. Catching a glimpse of the number plate as she drives off, the drifter, Pierre Menda, resolves to track her down, which he does by visiting the police station. When he arrives at the address, he finds two sisters, Helene and Eva (played by Odile Versois and Marina Vlady, real sisters), but cannot figure out if either of them or neither was the mysterious woman from the night before. To complicate matters, Eva is in a wheelchair, unable to walk due to polio. The rest of the movie involves Pierre and viewers trying to guess who goes out each night in the white car, while both women compete for his affections.  Unfortunately, by the time we reach the conclusion, I didn’t care too much anymore; the filmmakers had undermined my interest with a hesitant plot.  In addition, I’m not sure the film is really a noir either, as the protagonist is able to walk away shrugging his shoulders just as easily as he fell into the sisters’ story.  It turns out that there is an entire oeuvre of Hossein movies, across different genres, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. Perhaps for those with more time on their hands than I?

 

T-Men (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

T-Men (1947) – A. Mann

John Alton was one of noir’s great cinematographers and his work on T-Men for director Anthony Mann is a good example. Shadows are everywhere here, with some scenes nearly pitch black. The film falls into the category of noirs that aimed to tell “true stories” under the auspices of U. S. Government agencies, often the FBI but here the Treasury Department (the “T” in T-Men). We begin with a brief introduction by an official before launching into a procedural look at an attempt to infiltrate a counterfeiting ring (complete with matter-of-fact narration; Dragnet was not far off). Dennis O’Keefe and Alfred Ryder play the title characters who go undercover, first in Detroit and then in L. A., to find out who is making new bills on impossibly good paper (discovered to come from Shanghai, eventually).  They have access to some high-quality engraved plates, retrieved from another counterfeiter now in prison, to give them credibility and to help them to get access to the big boss of the ring. Of course, things don’t always go to plan.  A solid outing for Mann and Alton who made a run of noirs together (and separately) in the late Forties.

 

Black Widow (1987)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Black Widow (1987) – B. Rafelson

Debra Winger stars as the Department of Justice investigator who suspects Theresa Russell of marrying and then killing successive wealthy husbands across multiple states. No one believes her but her boss lets her take time off to pursue her theory, which leads her first to Seattle and then to Hawaii where she befriends Russell and tries to thwart her plot. There’s a twist ending, as befits a film noir.  However, as directed by Bob Rafelson, the result is a bit flat. I didn’t care for his earlier take on noir either, a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1981, with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. Perhaps, in the hands of another director, the screenplay by Ron Bass might have worked – or perhaps if we had other actors in the leads? Winger is fine playing a bit of a schlub who blossoms when competing with Russell’s black widow for romantic attention but Russell herself seems dull and unconvincing in her part. Overall, it’s okay, especially because there are few films where the detective is female (and that adds a little frisson), but there are other much better ‘80s neonoirs out there (such as Body Heat, 1981, for example).

 

The Big Clock (1948)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Big Clock (1948) – J. Farrow

This film came packaged in a “Universal Noir” DVD boxset (alongside This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, and The Blue Dahlia) – to be honest, I always felt this was the lesser of the bunch (the only one without Ladd & Lake). Watching it again last night for Noirvember, I appreciated it a bit more but still feel that its often jokey tone doesn’t quite allow the darkness of the noir themes to come through. As “Crimeways” magazine editor George Stroud, Ray Milland is, in many ways, an archetypal noir protagonist – he’s a bit of a cad who ignores his wife and child, partly because he’s pressured by the publisher Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton) and partly because he likes a drink and is happy to chat up a pretty lady. For these latter sins, he is made to pay when one of the women he is out with ends up murdered and his magazine is charged with finding the killer, using their special board of clues that all begin to point directly to George himself.  He’s in a tight spot but thinks he knows the real killer – however time is running out as witnesses who saw the victim with him are lining up to take a look at all of the employees in the building. Janoth cruelly ramps up the pressure, demanding an outcome, without knowing the squeeze George is in. And yet, and yet, Milland’s performance never really captures the dread he would be feeling, instead he displays fast-thinking and scrambles to get out of the jam (with the help of his wife played by Maureen O’Sullivan, director John Farrow’s real wife and mother of Mia Farrow) with a bit of sardonic humour to boot. Enjoyable but I want the darkness.   

 

The Hidden (1987)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Hidden (1987) – J. Shoulder

I’d be very surprised if Kyle MacLachlan wasn’t thinking about this film when he played the role of “Dougie” for David Lynch in the final series of Twin Peaks. His role as an FBI agent in The Hidden seems similar in outlook: simple-minded but purposive and relatively affectless. The difference is that Agent Lloyd Gallagher has a secret that he knows better than to share with others, including the Los Angeles cop (Michael Nouri) that he teams up with to track down a whacked-out killer on the loose.  Or more than one killer.  So, it is your typical ‘80s buddy film decked out with car chases and a high body count and at least one visit to a strip joint. But despite all of the clichés, this film gains some points just for its sheer weirdness (there is a sci-fi angle) and, I guess, for the fact that it manages to hold its plot together all the way through.  

 

X (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

X (2022) – T. West

Perhaps the only thing I distinctly remember (aside from the ubiquitous hockey mask) from Friday the 13^th Part III (in 3D! 1982) is an eyeball being torn from a head and thrust out of the screen and into the audience (and yes, I saw this in the theatre for maximum shocks and social support). There is something of an homage to that scene (or to Fulci’s The Beyond) in Ti West’s new film, X. Indeed, in re-watching the trailer to the 3D film now, it is even more apparent how much West’s film is a return to those carefree days of the slasher film. As in the old trailer, a bunch of young people jump into an old van (the new film takes place in 1979), headed to the countryside, where they run into trouble.  In this case, they are actually on their way to make an amateur porno movie – but West turns the old cliché that the characters who have sex are the first to die on its head here (we can talk about the pornification of everything some other time). And, of course, all of the characters do die – save one, but what did you expect? Intriguingly, the killer here is not your ordinary insane man but instead an elderly woman (played in a dual role by Mia Goth who also plays one of the kids in trouble). Part of the horror then is undoubtedly supposed to be based on our repulsion to thinking about old people and, in particular, old people with real human desires.  Perhaps the youthful audience that is more likely to watch this kind of film might find them gross, but West does seem to find some sympathy for the killer(s). Not really what you’d expect in your garden variety slasher film.

 

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) – D. Sharp

Although the plot is standard fare (stranded travellers find themselves invited to vampire castle), there is something different about this Hammer Horror outing, something that makes it feel more unseemly than usual, perhaps more genuinely horrific. I don’t think we can chalk that up to the absence of Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, although perhaps their charismatic presences make evil and the fighting of it something less than mundane. In this film, with no real recognisable actors (not even Hammer regulars), perhaps there’s a sense that the unspeakable could happen to anyone. The innkeeper’s wife has some deeply sad moments, grieving privately for her daughter, now a vampire as part of the cult lead by Dr Ravna (Noel Willman), grief that is perceived quizzically by our protagonists, Gerald and Marianne (Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel), who seem very sheltered if not occasionally buffoonish.  Although warned to be careful by Professor Zimmer (a rather spooky figure himself, played by Clifford Evans), they still attend the fancy dress party held by Ravna where his followers drug Gerald’s drink and then escort Marianne to receive the titular kiss from Ravna. When Gerald awakes, everyone (including the innkeeper) claims never to have seen Marianne.  Fortunately, Zimmer is ready, armed with some supernatural incantations that cause a horde of bats to descend on the vampire clan and destroy them. Even the rubber bats can’t really destroy the unsettling spell cast by this film.