Friday, October 8, 2021 at 9:02:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is John Boulting’s Brighton Rock (1948) with Richard Attenborough and Carol Marsh, based on Graham Greene’s 1938 novel.
A British crime film with Attenborough as a violent gangster, Marsh as his wife.
Eddie Muller continues with another film not of the Noir canon. I haven’t seen it.
Earlier Saturday Night at 10 p.m. ET, TCM shows Richard Fleischer’s Armored Car Robbery (1950) with Charles McGraw, William Talman, and Adele Jergens.
Film Noir Guide: “McGraw and Talman give standout performances in this nearly heist noir, which was released the same day as its more famous noir cousin, The Asphalt Jungle.
“Talman, a vicious killer, is the brains behind the planned heist of an armored car during its stop at Chicago’s Wrigley Field [David in TN, actually Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field]. Douglas Fowley, Steve Brodie, and Gene Evans are his accomplices.
“Things go wrong (as they inevitably do in a noir heist), and one of the gang is wounded in a shoot-out with police detective McGraw and his partner, who is killed by Talman. The robbers get away, but there’s dissension over the split and (surprise!) Talman winds up with all of the dough. In an attempt to trap the cop-killer, McGraw and his new partner (Don McGuire) stake out Fowley's stripper wife (Jergens), who is also Talman’s lover. A guaranteed no-snoozer.”
David in TN: Richard Fleischer packed a lot of action and plot in a 67-minute film.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week at 1:30 am and 10 am ET is Rudolph Mate's The Dark Past (1948) with William Holden, Nina Foch, Lee J. Cobb.
Film Noir Guide: "Psychopathic killer Holden escapes from prison and, along with his gang and moll (Foch), invades psychiatrist Cobb's weekend retreat, holding his family, house guests and servants hostage while waiting for a getaway boat to arrive. Cobb makes the best of a bad situation by psychoanalyzing Holden and, displaying little concern for the safety of his wife and young son, spends his time trying to help the killer unravel the mystery of a recurring nightmare and, thus, his criminal mind. Talk about workaholics! Although director Mate overuses some common noir techniques (narration, flashback within a flashback and a weird dream sequence)< they work well, making the mundane plot more interesting. This remake of 1939's Blind Alley offers a controversial solution to society's violent criminals--send young offenders to psychiatric hospitals instead of jail before they turn into mad-dog killers."
The theory that vicious criminals were "just insane" was in vogue at the time, later regularly used as the Crazy Card.
The scenario resembles The Desperate Hours (1955). William Holden and Nina Foch are cast against type. Holden, up to then, was in "light" roles, here a psycho killer. Soon he starred in Sunset Blvd (1950), but was not often a Bad Guy the rest of his career.
Nina Foch, elegant and well spoken, plays a gang moll.
Not much like the real life cases we've seen.
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