On September 10, Turner Classic Movies will air Gaslight (1944), a classic suspense thriller that still has a lot to say about domestic violence and abusive power in relationships.
In Gaslight, an evil husband (Charles Boyer) isolates his wife (Ingrid Bergman) and uses manipulation to convince her that she’s going crazy. He’s seeking to conceal his crimes and gain unfettered control of her house and fortune. He’s also dallying with the maid (a nubile 18-year-old Angela Lansbury). Fortunately, the wife’s longtime admirer (Joseph Cotton) works for Scotland Yard and starts to investigate…
Domestic Violence is abuse of a partner, generally characterized by asserting power and control over the partner. Not all domestic violence is physical, and this phenomenon of abuse by manipulation takes it name – gaslighting – from this movie.
The Film Noir Foundation recently screened Gaslight to an audience of domestic violence survivors and support professionals. I recommend Noir Talk, the Film Noir Foundation’s excellent podcast on iTunes. Search for Gaslight and domestic violence in Episode 10. Here’s one of the tidbits from the podcast: Ingrid Bergman thought she was too vibrant and healthy-looking for the part; but that works to show how the manipulation can work on a woman who doesn’t look like a victim.
This famous Gaslight is actually a remake of the original 1940 version, which is also especially well-acted. Anton Walbrook is suave and evil as the hubbie and Dyana Wyngard is unforgettably haunting as the wife. Only 19 minutes in, we see his duplicity, manipulation and control. Frank Pettingell is very good as the detective, and the cast includes Robert Newton (Long John Silver in the 1950 Treasure Island). Cathleen Cordell plays the oversexed maid Nancy in a less nuanced performance than Angela Lansbury’s. This film version is reportedly the most faithful to the stage play source material. (Oddly, there’s a very good can-can dance in this 1940 movie, too.)
Jane Wyatt amd Lee J. Cobb in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
In The Man Who Cheated Himself, which I saw at the Noir City festival earlier this year, a cop falls for a dame who makes him go bad. But it’s not just any cop and not just any dame.
The cop is Ed, a seasoned and cynical pro who knows better. He is played by Lee J. Cobb, whom Czar of Noir Eddie Muller called “the most blustery actor this side of Rod Steiger”. Cobb is known for playing Juror 3, the primary antagonist to Henry Fonda, in 12 Angry Men and the ruthless mob boss Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront. Ed seems impervious to human emotion and says things like, “You’re a big girl. Cut the tantrums”.
The dame is the much wealthier – and married – socialite Lois (Jane Wyatt). Lois is a puddle of capriciousness and carnality. She has the same fluttery appeal as Mary Astor’s Brigid O’ Shaunessy in The Maltese Falcon.
Wyatt rarely got a chance to play as mercurial a character as Lois. Of course, she’s best known as the mid-century suburban mom/wife in Father Knows Best, rock steady and super square. Before that Wyatt worked in film noir, but not as the femme fatale. She was in Pitfall as the good wife that Dick Powell gets bored with when Lizabeth Scott comes along. In Boomerang! she was the heroic DA’s wife. She played the wife of a murderer who falls for her brother-in-law in House by the River and the sister in a message picture, Gentleman’s Agreement.
But in The Man Who Cheated Himself, Wyatt got to uncork more hysterical unreliability, sexual predation and neediness than in all of her other roles combined. You know when you see a woman and think, She’s trouble? Well, Lois is trouble.
For all of his world-weariness, Ed is really enjoying his affair with Lois. Despite knowing better, he is in deep. As he says, “She’s good for me. She’s no good, but that’s the way it is.”
Lois impulsively shoots her husband, and, in the moment, Ed makes the fateful decision to cover it up.
To complicate matters, Ed’s younger brother Andy (John Dall) has followed his brother on to the police force and just been promoted from walking a beat to detective. This murder is his very first case and he’s really eager to show his big brother proud. It turns out that Andy is smart and has the makings of a first class detective.
John Dall and Lee J. Cobb in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
Writers Seton I. Miller and Philip MacDonald cleverly plotted The Man Who Cheated Himself so Ed and Lois get not one, but two, lucky breaks that make it look like they are getting away with it. But then Andy’s young wife and a CHP officer help Andy link the pieces together. Miller and MacDonald have embedded lots of humor in double entendres and absurdly close escapes. One of the funniest bits is an eyewitness, the earnestly unhelpful Mr. Quimby (Charles Arnt).
Are Ed and Lois going to get away with it? Well, this is noir. They find themselves cornered at Fort Point, the windiest spot on the west coast of North America, The notorious wind (actually underplayed in the movie) helps build the suspense.
Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
And what an ending! In their final encounter, Lois is going one way – the way that those privileged by wealth and good looks always go. Ed is going in the other direction – the way every noir protagonist goes when he falls for a bad dame. He lights a cigarette and their eyes lock wordlessly; when she leaves, we see in his eyes whether it was all worth it.
The noir in The Man Who Cheated Himself comes from the falling-for-the-wrong-woman theme and the snappy, sarcastic dialogue. There’s no noir camerawork with looming shadows, venetian-blinds-across-the-face and cigarette smoke dancing to the ceiling here.
But there are plenty of glorious mid-century San Francisco locations – hills, mansions of the nobs, grittier streets and the waterfront (back when it was a sketchy working port). It’s the San Francisco that I remember as a child in the 1950s, with women wearing gloves during the day and human-tended toll booths at the Golden Gate Bridge (when the toll was collected northbound, too!).
And, odd for a San Francisco-set noir, it is definitely not fog-shrouded. The day I saw The Man Who Cheated Himself was one of those gorgeous sunny days that San Francisco gets in the winter – and that’s what the movie looks like.
The Man Who Cheated Himself’s director was the otherwise undistinguished journeyman Felix Feist. Feist made a handful of other noirs, including The Threat with Charles McGraw as a vengeful hood, Tomorrow is Another Day with an irresistible Ruth Roman and The Devil Thumbs a Ride with Lawrence Tierney. Then Feist left the movies to direct over seventy episodes of TV shows.
The raison d‘être of the Noir City film festivals is to raise money for the Film Noir Foundation’s restoration of classic film noir. The FNF just restored The Man Who Cheated Himself so it could be seen again in a theater for the first time in decades. It’s not yet available to stream, but Turner Classic Movies will air it on Muller’s Noir Alley series on June 23 and 24.
Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, is underway in San Francisco this week. Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD or streaming. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace (San Francisco’s Castro Theatre) with a thousand other film fans.
Eddie Muller, who you should recognize as host of Turner Classic Movie’s Noir Alley series, has programmed this year’s version as “Film Noir from A to B”. Back in the classic noir period of thw 1940s and early 1950s, filmgoers expected a double feaure – an “A” movie with big stars, followed by a shorter and less expensively-made “B” picture. Each evening of Noir City will feature A and B movies from the same year, starting with 1941 and ending with 1953. Trench coats and fedoras are not required (and no smoking, please), but, other than that, you’ll get the full retro experience in the period-appropriate Castro.
Noir City runs through next Sunday, February 4. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here.
Many of the films in this year’s program are VERY difficult to find. The Man Who Cheated Himself, Destiny, Jealousy, The Threat and Quiet Please, Murder. The Man Who Cheated Himself has just been restored by the Film Noir Foundation.
My personal favorites on the program:
I Wake Up Screaming (sorry – last Friday night): A very early noir with a stalker theme and a creepy performance by the tragic Laird Cregar.
Shadow of a Doubt(sorry – last night): Set in Santa Rosa back when you could drive through it quickly, the ultra-sympathetic Theresa Wright starts connecting the dots that link her very favorite Cool Uncle (Joesph Cotten) to serial murders.
Roadblock: I love the growly noir icon Charles McGraw as a mean heavie or a relentless copper. Here he plays against type as a super-straight sap turned to the dark side by the dame he falls for.
The Blue Dahlia:The only original screenplay by the master of the hardboiled, Raymong Chandler. Alan Ladd returns from wartime service to find an especially disloyal wife. When she is murdered, the cops suspect him, and the mob is after him, but he does find Veronica Lake. (Digression: Were Ladd and Lake the shortest pair of romantic leads ever?)
To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here. Don’t miss out on Noir City’s bang up final weekend, with The Man Who Cheated Himselfand Roadblock, The Big Heat and wickedly trashy Beverly Michaels in Wicked Woman.
I always look forward to the Noir City film fest, which gets underway in San Francisco this week. Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace (San Francisco’s Castro Theatre) with a thousand other film fans.
The theme of this year’s festival is the Heist Movie, Noir City is presenting a wonderful array of heist movies from the classic American film noir period, foreign noirs and an especially healthy selection of neo-noirs. Being noir, you might not expect many of these heists to end well. And some are from noir’s Perfect Crime sub-genre – they’re going to get away with the elaborately planned big heist EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.
Noir City runs January 20-29. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here.
On Noir City’s first weekend:
The Asphalt Jungle: As long as things go according to plan… John Huston directed a marvelous cast (Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen, John McIntire). And even Louis Calhern knows that Marilyn Monroe isn’t going to stick around as his moll.
Violent Saturday: a completely overlooked film from one of my favorite directors that I hadn’t seen until Eddie Muller programmed it for this festival. Filmed in the bright Arizona desert with CinemaScope and De Luxe color, the story is plenty noir.
Four Ways Out: Saturday night, Noir City goes goes Italian with the last script written by screenwriter Federico Fellini before he started directing. Four guys pull a heist, and it goes bad four different ways.
Big Deal on Madonna Street, the funniest film in the festival, with an Italian gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Watch for a 34-year-old pre-Fellini Marcello Mastroianni.
Rififi: This French classic is the top heist film ever and pioneering in its use of real time. After the team is assembled and the job is plotted, the actual crime unfolds in real-time – over thirty minutes of nerve wracking silence.
The Big Risk: It’s a highlight because it’s a French noir starring the bloodhound-visaged Lino Ventura that I have NOT seen, so I’ll be going to Noir City myself on Sunday.
And midweek, at Noir City:
The rarely-seen Once a Thief (Alain Delon, trying to keep Ann-Margret while being hunted by Van Heflin) and The Sicilian Clan (with the neo-noir trifecta of Delon, Ventura and Jean Gabin), both on Wednesday evening, January 25.
I’ll be writing about Noir City’s tremendous final weekend. Stay tuned.
Turner Classic Movies has announced a CAN’T MISS summer film noir series. The “Summer of Darkness” will be hosted by Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir. Here’s the complete schedule.
TCM will be presenting 24 hours of film noir on each Friday in June and July. Every week, Eddie Muller himself will present four movies in prime time in TCM’s “Friday Night Spotlight.” Muller has penned this introductory article.
The Film Noir Foundation performs an invaluable mission: preserving and restoring classic film noir that would otherwise be lost to us and to posterity. And Muller and the Foundation host one of my absolute film festivals every winter in San Francisco – Noir City. Noir City has been expanding into other cities. Muller is a respected film historian, and his DVD commentaries are excellent. Here’s your chance to experience the Czar of Noir on television.
I’ll be calling out specific recommendations from the Summertime of Darkness in my regular Movies to See Right Now posts on Fridays, as well as writing some special posts on my favorite Overlooked Noir, including Woman on the Run and Elevator to the Gallows. Stay tuned.
I always look forward to the Noir City film fest, which is underway in San Francisco this week. Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD. Here’s one of my experiences from a recent Noir City
Film noir, the genre of cynical stories that are starkly photographed to emphasize the darkness of the plots, originated in the US in the 1940s but was named by the French. So it’s fitting that this year’s Noir City goes international, sampling film noir from France, Argentina, Mexico, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, Norway and Germany, along with some American noir set in the far East and South of the Border. I’ll be checking out the Argentinian classics Never Open that Door and Hardly a Criminal, which are not available on DVD.
To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here.
It’s more than a film fest, it’s a feast of film noir.
This June, Turner Classic Movies’ Friday Night Spotlight will focus on Noir Writers. The guest programmer and host will be San Francisco’s Eddie Muller, founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. It also sponsors Noir City, an annual festival of film noir in San Francisco, which often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD. (My favorite part is Noir City’s Thursday evening Bad Girl Night featuring its most memorable femmes fatale.)
Muller (the Czar of Noir) has selected films from the work of noir novelists. Friday night, he kicks off with films from the novels of Dashiell Hammett: the 1931 and more famous 1941 versions of The Maltese Falcon, plus the 1936 version (Satan Met a Lady) and After the Thin Man and The Glass Key. (Muller informs us that Hammett pronounced his first name da-SHEEL.)
On June 14, Muller continues with the work of David Goodis, The Burglar, The Burglars, The Unfaithful, Shoot the Piano Player and Nightfall. (You may have seen Goodis’ Dark Passage with Bogie and Bacall.)
On June 21, we’ll see films from the novels of Jonathan Latimer (Nocturne, They Won’t Believe Me) and James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice).
TCM and the Czar of Noir wrap up on June 28 with movies from the novels of Cornell Woolrich (The Leopard Man, Deadline at Dawn) and Raymond Chandler (Murder My Sweet, The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, Strangers on a Train).
These two movies aren’t part of the Friday night series, but on June 11, TCM features two of the nastiest noirs: Detour and The Hitchhiker.
Set your DVR and settle in for dramatic shadows, sarcastic banter and guys in fedoras making big mistakes for love, lust and avarice.
