The Noir Chronicles

The Guild Cinema blessed us again this summer with its annual festival of noir. Here's a sampling, in reverse chronological order:

PRIVATE PROPERTY (1960) (A-minus) - This unsettling suspense film -- recently restored at UCLA -- is a classic creep-out.

A pair of drifters -- Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) -- bum a ride to the hills of L.A. where they find an empty house next door to a housewife they have targeted for a sexual conquest. Duke either feels sorry for his virginal partner or suspects he is a homosexual.

Duke takes the lead, ringing the door of Ann Carlyle (the lapine Kate Manx) posing as a handyman/gardener looking for work. It takes a few tries, but he eventually gets his foot in the door, and before you know it, he's worked up a sweat, doffed his shirt and jumped in the backyard swimming pool, as Boots spies from next door. Turns out Ann's husband is a stuffy businessman who is uninterested in satisfying his wife's carnal needs, leaving her craving a man's touch.

You can tell Ann is under-served, because we see her at various times suckling on an ice cube or fondling a candlestick to signal to the audience (if not her clueless husband) that she's horny. And Manx is a total '60s minx. Here's her come-hither look as she coils up like a kitten on the plush carpet in front of the TV:

Writer/director Leslie Stevens -- notably Manx's husband at the time -- was a veteran of the TV thriller anthology series "The Outer Limits," and he knows how to craft a simple yet compelling plot and how to ratchet up the tension. He creates a fascinating dichotomy and quite the conundrum for the viewer -- how can we watch this story of the unfulfilled housewife begging to get laid while two drifters are essentially plotting to rape her? Dare we watch this?

What follows is an unnerving pas de deux between Duke and Ann, with Boots wondering when his turn is going to come. The actors in this menacing menage a trois carry it off beautifully. Allen (who would continue in TV, mostly directing dramas and such TV telepics as "The Ann Jillian Story") has boyish good looks and a broad chest. Manx (who died four years later at age 34 of an overdose of sleeping pills) captures the dilemma of the happy housewife flirting with danger. Oates, in one of his earliest roles, oozes angst and desperation; you don't know what he might be capable of.

The final reel doesn't disappoint as Stevens builds it all to a shattering climax. It's tough to watch, but you can't take your eyes off of it.

CRISS CROSS (1949) (B-minus) - The proceedings drag a bit too often in this tale of a man trying to win back his ex by scheming with her husband to pull off a Brinks heist and then out-maneuvering him for the gal.

Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo are the criss-crossed lovers in brightly lit downtown Los Angeles, rekindling a romance that should have been left in the past. De Carlo (in her heyday as a dark-eyed screen siren before settling into the infamous role of Lily Munster 15 years later) smolders as Anna, toying with frustrated Steve (Lancaster) while taking the arm of ringleader Slim (Dan Duryea, a fixture of westerns).

Lancaster is fine as the sweaty double-crosser who will allow his cash-delivery truck to be robbed. Director Robert Siodmak ("The Killers," below) keeps a swift pace to deliver 88 minutes of suspense.

THE KILLERS (1946) (B-minus) - This landmark noir tale -- based on an Ernest Hemingway short story -- is incredibly convoluted, to the point of being drained of real drama or intrigue. It is a chore to get through. (Just try to follow the plot in this Wikipedia summary.)

Burt Lancaster, in his screen debut, is the Swede, a former boxer who falls in with mobsters and pays for it with his life. He dies in a hit job early on, so that's not the mystery. Instead, we follow an insurance adjuster trying to piece together the why of it all, through numerous confusing flashbacks.

This is classic noir, right in the wheelhouse, but it fails to hold together as a compelling narrative. Luckily, Ava Gardner shows up, oozing catnip from every pore. She becomes the Swede's femme fatale after he dumps a gal-next-door type (who ends up married to a cop who sends the Swede away for a petty crime that precedes the big heist. Gardner belts out a tune, leaving Lancaster moon-eyed, and has a way of coiling up on a bed while the boys plot their big score.

The director (Siodmak again) can't help himself with the twisty flashbacks, and cliches abound, including a fevered deathbed confession that conveniently ties up narrative loose ends. The extended opening scene (really the only aspect taken from Hemingway) sizzles with dread as two killers terrorize a diner owner and his staff, snapping off Tarantino-like dialogue before heading over to bump off the Swede and get the plot rolling. The rest of the movie is just tacked-on clutter.

BONUS TRACKS
We love watching the opening credits of these old movies, because invariably a name pops up among the cast members of a bit actor who will go on to some level of acclaim, often during the TV era of our youth. And it's usually deep into the cast list. In "The Killers," it's William Conrad, later TV detective "Cannon." In "Criss-Cross," it's Alan Napier, aka Alfred the butler in "Batman."

And here's the theme music from "The Killers," from the esteemed Miklos Rozsa. The strains would be adapted for TV's "Dragnet" two decades later.



And bandleader Esy Morales gets top-tier billing in "Criss Cross," which features him and his band pounding out "Jungle Fever" as De Carlo dances with a young Tony Curtis (in his uncredited screen debut). Morales, too, would die young -- a year after the film was released at age 33.