The Noir Chronicles

 After a year in the dark, the Guild Cinema film noir festival returns to its rightful place smack in the middle of the dog days of summer.  Here are some titles we sampled.

DEAD RECKONING (1947) (B-minus) - Lizabeth Scott stands in ably for Lauren Bacall opposite Humphrey Bogart in this tale of a WWII hero who tracks down the  mystery of his fellow paratrooper. Bogart is strong, but Scott is left to mostly pout her way through the role of a spoiled rich woman whose story is merely carried along by the current of an over-stuffed plot.

Rip Murdock (Bogart) courts trouble by tracking down his Army buddy, Johnny (William Prince), who skips out on a medal ceremony because he has been faking his identity, rooted in an incident in which he was possibly being framed for murder. The buddy goes missing, so Bogart works with the woman Johnny pined for, Coral Chandler (Scott), navigating among some casino moguls. 

Like a lot of this year's entries, this one is about a reel too long; 100 minutes is just too much real estate, allowing the convoluted narrative to meander way beyond a false ending that comes around the 75-minute mark.  I honestly struggled at times to keep up with the twists and turns. The dialogue has its moments ("Careful what you say to me," Coral purrs to Rip, "I'm the marrying type.") but the script tries to hard to be clever and snappy. Rip narrates most of the story in flashback, leaving most of the heavy lifting to Bogart and his swagger. Scott doesn't have much range, but she is fascinating to watch, and the film makes a point of playing up -- and pointing out -- that husky voice of hers. This is serviceable postwar noir.

SPOTTED: Frank Wilcox, who would go on to play Mr. Brewster on "The Beverly Hillbillies," appears for a few seconds as a hotel clerk.

TOO LATE FOR TEARS (KILLER BAIT) (1949) (B) - Lizabeth Scott (in the other half of her double feature) runs the show here as part of a couple who have a bag full of money almost literally fall into their lap. He's queasy about it, so she needs to get that milquetoast hubby out of the way. She recruits a big brute who has a connection to the cash to help her with the plan, but she's wise enough to keep the lug at arm's length. 

Scott, a postwar Kathleen Turner, stars as Jane Palmer, who, in order to get away with the money, cooks up a pretty good plot (courtesy of screenwriter Roy Huggins, who would go on to create the TV classic "The Fugitive"). She keeps her nosy sister-in-law Kathy (Kristine Miller), who lives across the hall, at arm's length, while she schemes with alcoholic Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) and plays him like a violin. 

The only real stumbling block here is an old "army pal" of her husband's, Don Blake (Don DeFore), whose folksy charm (he woos the sister-in-law) belies the mind of a sleuth. He and Scott exchange the best lines, such as when, knowing she carries a gun, he questions her as she starts rooting around in her purse.  "Looking for something?" he asks. She replies, "My lipstick." His retort: "Colt or Smith & Wesson?" A tad long at 99 minutes, this is sharp movie-making from journeyman director Byron Haskin.

SPOTTED: DeFore, who would go on to play the harried father on TV's "Hazel."

THE RED HOUSE (1947) (C+) - Edward G. Robinson hams it up as a spooked ol' coot who warns the teeny-boppers away from a creepy house in the woods, even though the psychic terror is his and his alone -- because it's the site of a personal tragedy that has scarred him for life. Now old Pete (Robinson) lives with his sister, Ellen (Judith Anderson), and their adopted teenage daughter, Meg (Allene Roberts), who cavorts with a few other high school seniors who are curious about the red house in the woods.

Meg is a bit of a wallflower, and she has a quiet crush on Nath (Lon McCallister), whom she recruits to work on Pete's farm (Pete has a wooden leg, the result of a fateful night at the red house). Nath, however, is going steady with sultry, sulky Tibby (Julie London), who in turn flirts with the hunky but creepy guy who patrols the woods, Teller (western veteran Rory Calhoun in an early role). And yes, this all plays out like a soap opera full of teen angst.

Director Delmer Daves ("3:10 to Yuma") drags this out for 100 minutes, watering down the suspense and letting Robinson spin out of control toward madness. Roberts, who would go on to have an uneventful career, gives a strong debut performance and holds down the core of a sloppy film. The homespun Gidgety dialogue of the teens has the occasional pop to it. When Meg seems anxious Nath accuses her of having "a case of the fidgets." And he says of the wild Tibby, "She's like an ornery heifer sometimes -- hard to hold down." Even Pete can seem young at heart: "When I was a young man and in love, Sunday was always a good day for spooning."

SPOTTED: London, who would croon the classic torch song "Cry Me a River" in "The Girl Can't Help It" and end her career in the '70s as a nurse on TV's "Emergency."

THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944) (B) - The Edward G. Robinson double feature teamed him here with Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang's tale of a femme fatale who draws a professor into a world of murder and blackmail. Too long at 99 minutes, this nevertheless zips along thanks to Robinson's sympathetic portrayal of Professor Richard Wanley and his platonic rapport with Bennett's Alice Reed, a model whose portrait in a window launches this caper.

Wanley, feeling like a bachelor after his wife and kids go on vacation, follows Alice home for a nightcap when a man bursts in and attacks him; Wanley kills him in self-defense. Alice knew her sugar daddy by a different name; he turns out to have been a well-known businessman. Instead of calling police, Wanley disposes of the body in the woods, and he spends the rest of the movie dodging the suspicions of his pal, District Attorney Frank Lalor (a sly Raymond Massey), who notes Wanley's nervous verbal slips during their various chats and a visit to the site where the body was found.

Meantime, Alice is being blackmailed by the dead man's former bodyguard (Dan Duryea again), and she and Wanley up the ante by plotting to rub out the bodyguard, too. Robinson is strong as the shlumpy lonely everyman caught up in an exciting underworld, and Bennett (later of the '60s goth soap opera "Dark Shadows") adds depth to her character. They benefit from the strong visuals and direction from master Fritz Lang ("Metropolis," "M") and a tight script from the prolific Nunnally Johnson, who pays attention to details every step of the way. Only a cop-out ending (billed as "the most startling surprise ending ever filmed!") undercuts the credibility that builds along with the suspense.

SPOTTED: Little Rascal Robert Blake, uncredited in the opening scene as the son of Robinson's professor. His '70s TV moment would be as "Baretta."