By David in TN
friday, may 19, 2023 at 8:48:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Gerald Mayer’s Dial 1119 (1950), Starring Marshall Thompson, with Virginia Field, Andrea King, Sam Levene, Leon Ames, Keefe Brasselle, William Conrad and James Bell.
Film Noir Guide: “Thompson stars as an escaped lunatic heading for the town where he was arrested. After ruthlessly gunning down a bus driver, he holes up in a bar across the street from police psychiatrist Levene’s apartment, waiting for the good doctor to come home so he can kill him. When the bartender (Conrad) recognizes him from a TV newscast, the gunman takes the employees and customers hostage, demanding that the police send in the doctor.
“His terrified hostages (Brasselle, Field, King, Ames and Bell) wait nervously while police surround the establishment. This suspenseful and innovative film contains interesting similarities to modern day hostage films—the news-hungry TV reporters and their live coverage of the crisis, the hostage negotiator, the argument over whether to storm the place or talk the killer out, an ice cream truck peddling its goods to curious thrill seekers, and the killer viewing events on, believe it or not, the bar’s 3 x 4—foot projection TV screen (in 1950!).
“A lot happens in 74 minutes. Thompson is believable as the psycho with an ax to grind.”
David in TN: I’m curious as to what Eddie Muller will say about Marshall Thompson. He was a conservative of sorts. Thompson starred in two early Vietnam movies, A Yank in Vietnam (1964), and To the Shores of Hell (1966). Thompson directed the first, which was filmed completely in South Vietnam. Both are pro-American and neither has been shown on TCM to my knowledge.
Thompson also starred in The Basketball Fix (1951), as a star basketball player caught up in the 1950-51 point-shaving scandal. It has (I have a DVD) a noirish feel. John Ireland played a sportswriter trying to break the story and get Thompson on the right track.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Richard Wallace's The Fallen Sparrow (1943) with John Garfield, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, Patricia Morrison, Martha O'Driscoll.
Film Noir Guide: "Garfield returns to the U.S. after helping the Spaniards in their fight against Franco. As a prisoner in Spain, he had been tortured by a Gestapo agent whose face he never saw but whose pronounced limp caused a dragging sound outside his cell--a sound he still hears in his disturbed mind."
"Once home, he discovers that his best friend, the man responsible for freeing him from the Spanish prison, has been killed and that authorities suspect his death was an accident or suicide. Determined to find the truth, he becomes entangled with Nazi spies eager for information that only he can provide."
"Clothing store model O'Hara, society dame Morison and nightclub singer O'Driscoll are the beautiful women involved, wittingly or unwittingly, with the spy ring. Slezak is a wheelchair-bound aristocrat with an unusual interest in Garfield's tale of physical and mental torture. Garfield gives a gripping performance as the haunted revolutionary."
David In TN: Red Eddie Muller will go overboard on this one. Maureen O'Hara said of her co-star, "Despite being a communist, John Garfield was a fine person and actor, easy to work with." Because O'Hara was taller than Garfield, in their scenes together Garfield stood on a box. This is based on a Dorothy B. Hughes novel. The director, Richard Wallace had previously done Shirley Temple movies.
The Fallen Sparrow isn't all that good. Maureen O'Hara looks great and John Garfield gave his usual performance but the story (to me) isn't believable or engrossing.
It's another case of Eddie Muller's mediocre selections. In his Intro, Eddie complained the film was called a "spy story" when released in 1943. Eddie Muller didn't invent the term "Film Noir," but through his hosting at TCM has probably done more than anyone to popularize the term.
In the 40s and 50s these films were called "crime stories" and "mystery films" by the studios, critics and public.
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