Quote of the Day! Noir Nosh

The General Died at Dawn 1936

Amid the anarchy of China, an American mercenary tangles with a ruthless warlord. Directed by Lewis Milestone with a screenplay by Clifford Odets. Stars Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Akim Tamiroff

O’Hara: (Gary Cooper) I like people too much to shoot. But it’s a dark year and a hard night.

Judy Perrie: (Madeleine Carroll) Maybe some day there’ll be a law to abolish the blues. Something big, like an amendment to the Constitution. For all of us.

High Sierra 1941

Directed by Raoul Walsh and written by John Huston. Stars Ida Lupino as Marie and Humphrey Bogart as Roy ‘Mad Dog’ Earle. Co-stars Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie, Henry Hull, Alan Curtis, Henry Travers and Jerome Cowan

After being released from prison, notorious thief Roy Earle is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.

Roy Earle: (Humphrey Bogart) I wouldn’t give you two cents for a dame without a temper.

Marie Garson: (Ida Lupino) Yeah, I get it, ‘ya always sorta hope ‘ya can get out, it keeps ‘ya going.

Key Largo 1948

Directed by John Huston screenplay by Richard Brooks & John Huston. Stars Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis and Marc Lawrence.

Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) visits his war buddy’s family hotel run by Lionel Barrymore and his daughter Lauren Bacall and finds a gangster (Edward G. Robinson) running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other. Claire Trevor turns in a brilliant performance as washed up torch singer Gaye Dawn.

Frank McCloud: (Humphrey Bogart) You don’t like it, do you Rocco, the storm? Show it your gun, why don’t you? If it doesn’t stop, shoot it.

Gaye Dawn: (Claire Trevor) No, Mr. Temple, it wasn’t you. It wasn’t the law or anybody. It was only Johnny Rocco. Nobody in the whole world is safe as long as he’s alive.

Sirocco 1951

A cynical American expatriate gets involved in smuggling and gun-running for the rebels during the 1925 Syrian insurgency against French occupation. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Stars Humphrey Bogart, Lee J. Cobb, Everett Sloane and Märta Torén

Harry Smith: (Humphrey Bogart) For you – chartreuse!

Violette: (Märta Torén) I want to tell you why I came.

Harry Smith: (Humphrey Bogart) Whatever it is, it will look better through the bottom of this glass.

Violette: (Märta Torén) What a man! You’re so ugly! Yes, you are! How can a man so ugly be so handsome?

Split Second 1953

Two escaped killers take hostages and hide in a Nevada mining ghost town knowing that an atom bomb is scheduled to be tested there the next morning. Directed by Dick Powell. Stars Stephen McNally, Alexis Smith Keith Andes and Jan Sterling.

Sam Hurley: (Stephen McNally) You ever been locked up?

Kay Garven: (Alexis Smith) Not the way you mean.

Sam Hurley: (Stephen McNally) I don’t care what way it is. Some people can stand it and some people can’t. The ones who can’t would kill themselves and anybody else just to get out for five minutes.

Larry Fleming: (Keith Andes) [referring to Dottie’s mother] Six husbands, and you’re still working on your first.

Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Vail: (Jan Sterling) Mother used up all the men we knew.

Hell Drivers 1957

Ex-con trucker tries to expose his boss’ rackets. Directed by Cy Endfield. Stars Stanley Baker as Tom Yately, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan as ‘Red’ William Hartnell, Alfie Bass, Jill Ireland, Sidney James, Wilfrid Lawson, David McCallum and Sean Connery.

C. ‘Red’ Redman, Foreman: (Patrick McGoohan) I don’t like yer’ attitude. You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.

Tom Yately: (Stanley Baker)You think so?

C. ‘Red’ Redman, Foreman: (Patrick McGoohan) An’ if I was to knock it off, your head might go with it.

Tom Yately: (Stanley Baker) Well, I’m the last man to want to walk around without a head.

This is your EverLovin’ Joey Sayin’ it’s one of those keep your down head low when that lead starts flyin’ kind of Fridays!

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) A magnificent specimen of pure viciousness & pure scientific research… by a magnificent Screwball

THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE (1938)

Dr. T.S Clitterhouse-“Crime and research.”

Dr. T.S. Clitterhouse-“The greatest crime of all!” ‘Rocks’ Valentine-“What’s that?” Dr. T.S.Clitterhouse–“Why, Homicide naturally.”

Directed by Anatole Litvak (The Sisters 1938, Confessions of a Nazi Spy 1939, Out of the Fog 1941, Blues in the Night 1941, Snake Pit 1948, Sorry, Wrong Number 1948, The Night of the Generals 1967) With a screenplay co-written by John Huston and John Huxley. Based on the play by Barré Lyndon – Music by Max Steiner who lends a dark and dramatic flourish to the sinister & mordant essence of the narrative.

Cinematography by Tony Gaudio (The Mask of Fu Manchu 1932, Lady Killer 1933, The Man With Two Faces 1934, Bordertown 1935, The Story of Louis Pasteur 1936, The Life of Emile Zola 1937, The Sisters 1938, Brother Orchid 1940, The Letter 1940, High Sierra 1941, The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942, Larceny, Inc. 1942, Experiment Perilous 1944, Love From a Stranger 1947)

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse converges into several genres–black comedy with deadly dark overtones, crime drama, the gangster movie, suspense & psychological noir with classical horror elements evidenced by the duality of the schizophrenic hero.

Though absurd it’s an enjoyable Litvak’s direction, Huston’s screenplay and Gaudio’s arousing photography make it an enjoyable film to watch.

While watching Litvak’s film again, it suddenly hit me (smack between my green eyes) there is one significant trope that stood out so obvious, so clearly to me. Strange that I hadn’t realized it during my first viewing.

Dr. Clitterhouse is an archetypal Jekyll & Hyde figure, using his immersion into criminal activity rather than a smoky elixir to drink down his uneasy gullet, that would normally transform his outer appearance into a fiend, Clitterhouse still becomes transfigured as a criminal and a murderer by and because of his endeavors.

**Edward G. Robinson as Pete Morgan in The Red House (1947) directed by Delmer Daves.**

The story raises the question of the duality inherent in the protagonist J.T. Clitterhouse, where it is possible to tap into the dark side, the doctor diverges into a classical medical/science horror with personality traits being tainted by the evil/immoral tendencies that people are capable of. When exploring immoral activities that can ‘change a man’s personality’ there is always a fatalistic inevitability. The disambiguation of the situation-there are no horror props, no mysterious mad scientifically developed drug inducement– it is the single act, desire and curiosity of a scientist seeking answers concerning the criminal mind that literally subsumes the nature of the personality examining the questions. i.e. Dr. Clitterhouse becomes not a monster, but a criminal and ultimately a murderer.

Clitterhouse is seduced by the excitement he experiences, and embraces the darker side of himself without the use of a scientific ‘horror’ concoction. While presented as a gangster film, its conceptualization of medical/science experimentation on vicious human nature, aberrations in psychology and the criminal mind elucidates the clear philosophical themes of classical medical-science horror.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) written by Barré Lyndon stars Edward G. Robinson as a phony mentalist haunted by greed and a sense of impending doom. Co-stars Gail Russell and John Lund.

Film genres’ lines were often blurred in the 1930s & 1940s, in particular a few of Edward G. Robsinson and Humphrey Bogart’s films which intersected with crime, noir and horror narratives. In particular director Delmer Daves frightening The Red House (1947) and director Julien Duvivier’s Flesh and Fantasy (1943) and Night Has a Thousand Eyes 1948 starring Edward G. Robinson.

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