This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. Once again, we have a fairly broad theme, "Femmes Fatales". These were a staple of noir back in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the neo-noir movies of later, and there are some pretty good dames you don't want to get mixed up with. With that in mind, I went for a theme within a theme:
Dead Reckoning (1947). Humphrey Bogart plays a soldier returning from World War II whose buddy was up for the Congressional Medal of Honor, but went AWOL. Bogie goes to his friend's home town and finds an old girlfriend (Lizabth Scott) who is now involved with a local gangster but is trying to get Bogart to pursue her. It gets complicated after this, but not as much of a mess as The Big Sleep.
Pitfall (1948). Dick Powell plays an insurance investigator who gets an assignment to repossess some items from a woman (Lizabeth Scott) who had received them as gifts from an embezzling boyfriend. Despite her obviously being high-maintenance and Powell being married to Jane Wyatt, he starts having illicit trysts with her. Private investigator Raymond Burr, who has worked for Powell's insurance company, figures out what's going on and thinks blackmail would be just fine.
Too Late for Tears (1949). In one of the rarer cases where the femme fatale is the victim's wife, this movie stars Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott as a married couple on their way to a party in the Hollywood Hills when somebody throws a bag into the back seat of a convertible. Apparently this was supposed to be the transfer of some money from a criminal activity and our married couple just happened to have the same type of car as the gangsters. Kennedy wants to return the money but Scott wants to spend it. Dan Duryea would like the money back.
And for honorable mention, I could mention Scott as the villain in Easy Living, playing the grasping wife of football player Victor Mature, whose career is about to end due to illness. That one is going to be on TCM this Sunday at 11:30 AM.
2 comments:
That's a great theme within the theme. Of all the noir goddesses I think Lizabeth Scott is perhaps the one most defined by the genre. She did a few random other types of films-a Western, a romance but she never seemed as at home as she did in the dark corners of noir.
All your picks are terrific pictures, especially the little known Easy Living which has a gem of a supporting performance by Lucille Ball as Victor Mature's staunch chum.
The other three are truly noirs with Too Late for Tears giving her perhaps the best role she had in her brief career.
We match on that one and my other three have a trio of great femme fatales.
Murder, My Sweet (1944)-Private dick Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) is hired by lumbering Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) fresh from the slammer to track down his former girlfriend Velma. Simultaneously he's commissioned to accompany flashy playboy Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) to buy back a stolen necklace. When the exchange goes wrong and the playboy is murdered Marlowe can't leave the case alone, and soon discovers it's related to Malloy's. As he pursues answers he is drawn deeper into a complex web of intrigue by the sweet Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley in her final film) and her detested stepmother, the mysterious and potentially lethal Helen (Claire Trevor). Suddenly the detective finds his own life in increasing jeopardy. A seminal film in the noir canon which turned the already famous Claire Trevor into the acknowledged Queen of Noir.
Hangover Square (1945)-In Victorian London composer George Bone (Laird Cregar) is struggling to complete his concerto, the stress of which is causing periods of blackouts where he fears he is committing unspeakable acts. Instructed by his doctor (George Sanders) to relax Bone begins to frequent a dance hall and becomes obsessed with the beautiful but duplicitous saloon singer Netta (Linda Darnell). Netta leeches onto the hapless musician manipulating him with false promises to extract songs to further her career. When George realizes he’s being played for a fool destruction is eminent for all. This was famed villain Cregar’s shot at leading man stardom which he desperately craved. A big man who tipped the scale at over 300 lbs. he went on a crash diet to lose 100 of those before production began leading to a heart attack and his death at 29 shortly after the film’s completion.
Too Late for Tears (1949)-With the cops in hot pursuit fleeing robber Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) frantically tosses a valise full of cash from his car with it fortuitously landing in the passing car of Jane and Alan Palmer (Lizabeth Scott & Arthur Kennedy). The Palmers at first plan to return the money but then Jane realizes she can escape her humdrum life and transforms into a rapacious and ruthless schemer who will do whatever is necessary to keep the loot no matter the cost or who will have to pay.
Human Desire (1954)-After instigating a fight brutish Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) is canned from his railroad job. Bitter and frenzied he coerces his young wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to use her wiles on her former paramour Mr. Owens (Grandon Rhodes) now Carl’s boss to try to gain his job back. It works, but Carl in a jealous rage convinces himself that Vicki and Owens are involved romantically and murders the man, forcing Vicki to become his accomplice. Sick of her husband's violent ways, Vicki seduces Jeff (Glenn Ford), one of Carl’s coworkers, and ensnares him in a plot to murder her husband but that path may lead to doom for them all.
I love your theme within a theme with the not well known (regrettably) Lizabeth Scott who is always great as the devious Femme fatale. The only one I have seen is the one where she wants to keep the money..bad, bad girl. I want to see the others, of course.
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