Friday, November 13, 2020 at 6:04:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Fear (1946). This is a 68-minute film by Poverty Row studio Monogram. The cast of not especially well-known players includes Warren William, Peter Cookson, Anne Gwynne, Nestor Paiva, Francis Pierlot, directed by “an American-born German director,” Alfred Zeisler.
Film Noir Guide: “Medical student Cookson has just lost his scholarship and is about to be evicted from his seedy apartment. The only way he can obtain his rent money, he thinks, is to rob and kill a cantankerous and miserly professor (Pierlot) who secretly acts as a pawnbroker for the students.
“Cookson goes to Pierlot’s apartment pretending he has something to pawn and strikes the man with a fireplace poker. Unfortunately for him, two students show up at the apartment door and he leaves in a panic, forgetting to take the money.
“Ironically, he receives a $1000 check the next day—payment for a magazine article he submitted about the intellectually superior man being above the law.
“The article attracts the attention of detectives William and Paiva, who suspect that Cookson might be the killer.
“Gwynne is the pretty waitress with whom Cookson falls in love. This is a skillfully acted little noir that sustains interest despite its low production values. The ending however is disappointing.”
David in TN: Fear (1946) is supposedly a re-working of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. A teacher had me read Crime and Punishment when I was a 15-year-old high school sophomore. She thought I was her only student who could read it. I considered it pretty dense.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 am ET is Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) with Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Paul Stewart, Gaby Rodgers, Wesley Addy, Jack Elam, Jack Lambert, Albert Dekker.
Film Noir Guide: "Hard-boiled author Mickey Spillane's macho private eye, Mike Hammer (Meeker), picks up a nearly naked female hitchhiker who has just escaped from a mental institution. They're kidnapped by bad guys Dekker, Elam, Lambert, and Stewart, who believe the girl is carrying the key to a mysterious object ('the great whatsit') they're desperately searching for. After torturing the girl, they put her and Meeker back in their car and push it over an embankment, leaving them for dead. The girl dies but Meeker recovers and becomes obsessed with the dead woman and her secret. Cooper plays the P.I.'s secretary and lover, Rodgers is the hitchhiker's strange roommate, and Addy is the police detective who warns Spillane to mind his own business. Meeker is sensational as the shady bedroom dick, whose specialty is the 'big squeeze' (playing husbands and wives against each other in divorce cases). He makes no bones about what he is--a remorseless opportunist seemingly unable to think before acting (perhaps as a result of all those knocks on the head). Rodgers is excellent as the shorthaired whiny-voiced sexpot, whose curiosity isnher downfall.
Despite its dated plot, the ultra-violent Kiss Me Deadly has gained a cult following over the years. It's a wild roller coaster ride that can be enjoyed over and over. In fact, a second viewing might be necessary to follow the complicated storyline. The original, ambiguous ending has been slightly altered in the restored version, settling some, but not all, questions. See I, the Jury, and My Gun is Quick for more Mike Hammer noir."
Film Noir Guide was pretty long-winded. In my opinion, Kiss Ne Deadly is much overrated. The two films were Mike Hammer was close to the novels were I, the Jury with Biff Elliot and The Girl Hunters (1964) when Spillane played Hammer himself (and had Shirley Eaton as femme fatale).
Most Hollywood directors and screenwriters heartily disliked Mike Hammer as written by Mickey Spillane. Too "fascist and reactionary." Kiss Me Deadly was no exception. Spillane hated the movie at the time, but warmed to it over the years when it became a "cult classic."
I read the Mike Hammer books in high school. In those days they were on the paperback book rack at drug stores. I had to tear the covers off (which showed naked females) so my mother wouldn't know what I was reading.
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