(The following reviews pertain to the UK Region 2 releases)
When
I'm in the right mood I adore bit of film noir. I admire the diversity of its
storytelling, I love every facet, from the hardboiled private eyes, duplicitous
dames and characters that seldom turn out to be what they first appear, to the
alleyways bathed in inky shadows, ramshackle apartments and half-lit street
corners they inhabit. How can you not get drawn in by the sheer delight of Edward
G Robinson playing a second rate psychic trying to convince the authorities he
can see the future in The Night Has a
Thousand Eyes? Or amnesiac John Hodiak on a mission to discover his own
identity, in the process getting embroiled in a 3-year-old murder case and the
search for a missing $2 million in Somewhere
in the Night? Yes, indeed, there's nothing quite like a hearty serving of film
noir on a Sunday afternoon to soothe those end-of-the-weekend blues.
Newly
released to dual format Blu-ray and DVD in the UK – carefully restored by UCLA
Film and Television Archive following several years of sleuthing by the Film
Noir Foundation – are a couple real crackers. I'd seen neither before but both have
quickly found a spot among my favourites.
First
up is 1949 United Artists picture Too
Late for Tears (also known under the re-release moniker Killer Bait), directed by Byron Haskin
from a Roy Huggins
story (first serialised in the 'Saturday Evening Post'). The plot hinges on a
bag packed with an ill-gotten $60,000 worth of banknotes. Husband and wife Alan
and Jane Palmer (Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott) are drawn into a deadly
game when someone in a passing car hurls a briefcase full of cash into the back
of their open top saloon – cash so hot it's "a bag o' dynamite", as
Alan sagely recognises it. He’s insistent that they hand it over to the cops,
but Jane is having none of it; their ship has come in and she intends to hop aboard.
Initially she swings Alan round to her way of thinking but it's not long before
the intended recipient of the money (Dan Duryea) shows up to claim it back.
Jane, tougher than she at first seemed, is determined to keep it even if doing
so means resorting to murder.
Despite
striking support from the slinky Kristine Miller and an urbane Don DeFore, this
is 100% Lizabeth Scott's parade. She's breathtaking as the ice cold blonde schemestress
with a loaded shooter in one hand and a clutch bag full of seductive ploys in
the other; as femme fatales go they don't come much wilier. Huggins' script is
awash with mistrust and the razor sharp repartee born thereof: "Looking
for something?"/"My lipstick"/"Colt or Smith &
Wesson?". The twists come thick and fast as Jane's scruples, if ever she
had any, are casually discarded as she calculatingly works to finagle the cash.
With a sucker punch of a final twist that doles out the roughest of justice, Too Late for Tears is a little gem.
Next up, a Universal Pictures release: Norman Foster's San Francisco based Woman on the Run, a tad lighter in tone
but equally gripping. Out walking his dog one night, artist Frank Johnson (Ross
Elliott) witnesses a murder – but the killer sees him too. With little faith in
police witness protection, Johnson does a runner. Believing that he's really trying
to escape their failing marriage, Frank's wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan) sets out
to find him. Assisted by intrepid reporter Dan Legget (Dennis O'Keefe), eager
to scoop a front page exclusive, Eleanor follows a trail of clues that reveal
things about Frank she never knew, all the while dodging the police (who believe
she'll lead them to her husband, the only person who can identify the killer), and
blindly unaware she’s being watched by the killer himself, intent on eliminating
the sole witness to his crime.
Working
from a screenplay he co-wrote with Alan Campbell, Foster (who went on to direct
episodes of Batman and The Green Hornet for television) keeps
the action moving along at a fair old lick, never afraid to punctuate the mood
with a splash of comic relief; the Johnson's dog is called Rembrandt, because
"It's the nearest we’ll come to owning one". Although it initially
feels like folly when the story’s ace twist is played midway point, it’s in
fact a very shrewd move; arming the audience with such vital knowledge serves
to ratchet up the suspense thereafter to almost unbearable levels. Boasting
some fantastic San Francisco location work and climaxing amidst the after-dark
amusement park thrills of Santa Monica's Ocean Park Pier (a finale which
delivers squalling tension to rival the theme park located climax to Hitchcock
classic Strangers on a Train,
released the following year), if you dip into only one noir thriller this year,
be sure that it's 24-carat keeper Woman
on the Run.
By the early 1970s there had been a revival of interest in the format of anthology suspense/horror stories. This genre had been all the rage in the late 1950s and early 1960s with shows like "The Twilight Zone", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Thriller!" (hosted by Boris Karloff) attracting loyal audiences. "Twilight Zone" creator and host Rod Serling had two bites at the apple when he introduced "Night Gallery" as a TV movie in 1969 (giving young Steven Spielberg his first major directing gig) and then spun it off into a moderately successful weekly TV series. The early to mid-1970s also saw a major resurgence in horror-themed anthology feature films. The concept was hardly a new one for the big screen as the first major film of this type was "Dead of Night", released in 1945. Roger Corman oversaw some similarly-themed big screen anthologies in the early to mid-1960s, many of which were inspired by classic horror stories based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Not to be outdone, Amicus Films, a rival of Hammer Studios, debuted their anthology concept with the 1965 release of "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors". By the early 1970s we had "Tales From the Crypt", "Vault of Horror", "The House That Dripped Blood" and many others. All of the short stories were based on the same theme: a bunch of disparate characters encounter some supernatural occurrences with the less savory people ending up getting their just desserts through ironic circumstances. In 1983 producer Andrew Mirisch decided to give the anthology concept a try by teaming with producer/screenwriter Christopher Crowe and pitching the concept to Universal. Mirisch had found success in recent years with two popular TV series: "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Universal gave the green light for McCarthy's proposed series "Nightmares". The concept was to feature a self-contained horror tale within a half-hour format. For various reasons, including the possible demise of a similarly-themed show titled "Darkroom", the idea for a weekly series was nixed. However, Universal liked what they had seen and decided to morph the concept into a feature film, retaining the title "Nightmares". It consisted of four individual tales and the film was directed by the esteemed Joseph Sargent, who had some high profile TV series and feature films to his credit. The result was an unremarkable but consistently entertaining film that is not as sharp or memorable as some of the best anthology films but superior to some of the weaker ones.
"Nightmares" dispenses with a gimmick used in many anthology films: having a creepy host reveal each of the stories. These just open "cold" without any attempt to link the plots or characters. First up is "Terror in Topanga" which finds Cristina Raines as a young mother who is hopelessly addicted to smoking. One evening she discovers she is out of cigarettes and decides to make a drive into town from her rural home in order to get a pack. Her husband admonishes her and insists that she stays home. Seems there is a manhunt on for a homicidal maniac who has butchered a police officer and who has been terrorizing other residents. Naturally, Raines ignores the advice and sneaks out of the house. The ride to town proves to be ominous with a few red herrings thrown in to mislead the audience, including her encounter with a hitchhiker on a lonely road. When she does make it to the store, it's manned by a wacko clerk (played the inimitable Anthony James) who is somehow more frightening than the maniac. By this point, Raines regrets her decision and is eager to race home. Despite the fact that there is a murderer on the loose, she refuses to lock the doors to her car, even when she leaves it to enter the store. This leads to a predictable development that comes about when she (in true horror movie crisis cliche mode) discovers she is coincidentally almost out of gas. Every major gas station is closed but she eventually finds a lone station on a foreboding mountain road. She has a tense encounter with the sole employee on duty who looks at her menacingly even as he pretends to pump gas. The payoff is based on one of the oldest urban horror legends but the tale is briskly paced and highly entertaining with Raines giving a fine performance as the increasingly nervous victim-to-be.
"Bishop of Battle" goes in an entirely different direction. It eschews dark, foreboding places in favor of a bright suburban home and a crowded game center at a shopping mall. Emilo Estevez is J.J. , an obnoxious high school kid with a mad passion for playing the titular game. He becomes so obsessed with reaching the "13th level" (something few have supposedly ever been able to do) that he begins to withdraw from his parents and friends. His attempts to reach his goal become the stuff of local legend and big crowds gather to watch his attempts- but he always falls a bit short of his ultimate victory. Goaded on by the graphic of the Bishop of Battle, who constantly tempts him to keep trying, J.J. ends up defying his parents, who have ordered him to cease and desist from game-playing. One night he breaks into the arcade and begins his final battle with the Bishop. It leads to a disastrous but predictable conclusion. This segment is well-acted by Estevez and, despite the fact that we can predict the "shock" ending, it plays out well enough. Most of the enjoyment, however, comes from seeing how positively archaic "state-of-the-art" gaming was back in the early 1980s.
"The Benediction" features Lance Henriksen as a priest serving in a tiny desert parish who undergoes a crisis of faith. Having witnessed so many terrible things happen to good people, he decides to hang up his frock and leave the priesthood. His fellow priest tries to talk him out of it, but he is determined to go his own way and start a new life. A big clue as to what awaits him comes with the rather awkward plot device of his being given a gift of holy water to keep him safe on his travels. This promising concept of a priest at odds with his faith is soon abandoned for a ludicrous scenario in which he becomes menaced by a black truck with an unseen driver that keeps appearing out of nowhere and smashing into his car, rendering it inoperable. The demonic vehicle then attempts to kill the priest in a series of spectacular attacks. One of the more ridiculous aspects of a tale that borrows shamelessly from the classic TV movie "Duel", the God-awful Universal cheese fest "The Car" and Stephen King's novel "Christina", is the fact that throughout this entire ordeal not a single other vehicle is anywhere to be seen. We know we are in a horror flick but there still has to be some semblance of reality. Henriksen gives a good performance but "The Benediction" is the weakest of the four stories in "Nightmare".
"Night of the Rat" is the best-remembered segment of the film because of its outrageous premise. Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur are a young couple with a cute little girl (Bridgette Andersen) who live a normal life in a suburban neighborhood. Mysterious sounds begin to occur and lead them to believe that rats are in the house. The headstrong husband insists he can handle the problem and indeed he does catch and kill the critter. However, this only leads to an escalation of terrors as inexplicable destruction begins to take place all over the house. Absurdly, the husband still insists he can solve everything but when cabinets start falling and dishes crashing, the wife calls in an exterminator who tells her that it appears the house is possessed by something of old German horror legend: a seemingly indestructible giant rat who is out to get revenge for the killing of her baby. The crazy premise actually works better than you might think thanks to the superior performances of the three leads who manage to keep straight faces even when confronted with a five foot rodent who invades their daughter's bed. The special effects of the rat itself look a bit laughable by today's standards but are admirable if one considers the technology of the era and the limited budget. The segment is the most enjoyable of the four and does contain some genuine chills before it's over-the-top finale. As with "The Benediction", there is a gnawing lack in credibility in that, despite the virtual wholesale destruction of this neighborhood home in the dead of night, apparently not one neighbor is aware of the situation.
Shout! Factory's horror label Scream! Factory has released "Nightmares" as a Blu-ray special edition. The main bonus feature is a highly enjoyable commentary track with Andrew Mirisch and Cristina Raines, who appears throughout the track even though she is only in the first segment. Seems she and Mirisch are old chums and had worked together on other projects. Their memories of this particular film get very spotty occasionally but the commentary rolls smoothly thanks to the moderator, film historian Shaun K. Chang, who runs the highly addictive retro film blog Hill Place (click here to access). Chang keeps the conversation light in tone and, not unusually for film historians, seems to have more facts about the making of the film than the people who actually made it. There is plenty of interesting discussion about the background of the movie as a TV project and some very amusing conversations with Mirisch about how "Nightmares" looks a lot richer in terms of production values than the notoriously cheap Universal productions of the era. (Mirisch notes that he was determined to avoid using the same staircase that appeared in seemingly every Universal TV show.) Chang also brings up a more disturbing and poignant fact: that actress Bridgette Andersen, one of the most prolific child actors of the time, died in 1997. Although he doesn't discuss the cause of her death of out respect for her memory, research shows she died at age 17 due to a heroin overdose. In terms of other aspects of the commentary, none of the three participants engage in pretentious analysis of the film and all seem content to regard it as a fun, if not overly significant entry in the horror film canon of the 1980s, though Mirisch concedes at the end of the commentary track that, having seen the film for the first time since 1983, it has aged better than he had expected. The special edition also contains a well-made original trailer and two ominous radio spots. (Remember when they advertised movies on the radio?) In all, a highly impressive Blu-ray release- but with one caveat. The packaging notes that there is a commentary track with Andrew Mirisch and Cristina Raines but doesn't even mention Shaun K. Chang, who does most of the heavy lifting in terms of setting the relaxed tone and getting Mirisch and Raines to reflect on long-forgotten aspects of the film. C'mon, Scream! Factory- how about giving credit where it is due?