Tag Archives: Dan Duryea

Larceny (George Sherman, 1948)

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Joan Caulfield gets an Orry-Kelly wardrobe but Shelley Winters gets all the best lines…and the reviews. When Winters was doing the rounds of talk shows in the 80s, hawking her biography and commenting on what a sex bomb she’d been in her films…I don’t think I quite believed her. Sure, she flashed a couple of pictures but I’d known her my whole life as…well, other people. But here she is in LARCENY, the first film in which she got star billing, as the sultry femme fatale who can’t keep her mitts off John Payne –no woman in this film can but it’s a bigger mistake for Shelley as she’s meant to be Dan Duryea’s girl, never a good idea in the movies. I’ve spliced together all her scenes – under 14 minutes. She’s got some archetypal hard-boiled dialogue, so recognisable it must have carried a hint of parody even then, and endlessly quotable now.  Had the film been better, she’d have become a queer icon earlier (or perhaps she was…even as early as this?

I’ve edited together all of her scenes in the film, under 14 minutes, so those interested might see: she’s fantastic!

José Arroyo

LADY ON A TRAIN ( Charles David, 1945)

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A light-hearted, slightly spoofy, detective story. The tone is somewhat in the vein of Simon Templar – sophisticated, elegant, tongue-in-cheek — hardly a surprise as the film is written by Lesley Charteris, who also wrote The Saint. The film begins with Deanna Durbin, playing a San Francisco heiress on her way to New York by train, who looks up from her detective novel and her box of chocolate, and witnesses a murder being committed as the train speeds by, a detail Agatha Christie must have taken note of, as that’s how her 4.50 FROM PADDINGTON begins.

As with CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (Robert Siodmak, 1944) this is a concerted effort to expand Deanna’s persona and her audience, also set at Christmas. She’s surround by a great cast (Ralph Bellamy, Dan Duryea, Allan Jenkins, Edward Everett Horton), beautifully lit by  Woody Bredell, and gets to sing three very famous songs songs in a low slow style that sounds lovely (‘Silent Night’, ‘Give Me A Little Kiss’,  ‘Day and Night’). She doesn’t quite swing but she’s no longer singing opera either. She wears a striking array of hats, dresses (by Howard Greer), hairdos and jewels ( and I see there are still entire Pinterest pages devoted to these).

The question is ‘what is this film doing in a noir box set’? The answer, I suppose, is that it’s instructive in that so many of the situations and the lighting are those one expects from noir, but the tone and moral world are so different as to turn the film into something else.

Deanna Durbin is very charismatic; she looks smashing, and sings great. But the character as written is very thoughtless of others and her charm has a bullying quality that slightly brings to mind Shirley Temple. The screen brags at the very top are a selection of her outfits and hairdos but also , immediately above, some archetypally noir imagery from the film. Lastly, it sometimes seems all a man needs to be imaged a villain is to carry a cat.

José Arroyo

Too Late for Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949)

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Too Late for Tears.jpg

A film noir I hadn´t seen before. Cheap, pulpy, lurid, hard-boiled, and rotten to its core. Just the way I like ’em. A bag of cash is thrown into the wrong car and the rest of the film is about everyone it doesn´t belong to trying to get their hands on it. Lizabeth Scott makes a bid to be the most fatal of femmes in the whole of film noir. She lies, and lies and lies. She cons and schemes and scams and is also able to come up with a new story every time she´s cornered. She´s so cool and collected she drives even Dan Duryea to drink. ´Don´t ever change,’ he tells her, ‘I wouldn´t like to see what you´re like with a heart’. Good thing because her heart is nowhere evident. Men fall like flies. Scott is totally inexpressive and completely great. She only livens up when her eyes focus on cash, diamonds or furs. Her heart beats only to the good life and she positively glistens to a kill. As to the saps…I mean the men… Oy, vey! The film is nothing special visually. Except for Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea, the cast is second-rate. But it´s got real narrative propulsion and completely basks in the seamy underside of life like great pulp is meant to. I loved it.

 

The Arrow Academy transfer is a pleasure to watch with very fine extras by Alex K Rode and a documentary on the film´s restoration. A must have for noir aficionados.

tooo latre for tears

José Arroyo