By David in TN
Friday, April 26, 2019 at 1:11:00 A.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:45 a.m. ET (and Sunday at 10 am ET) is a remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 classic M.
This 1951 version, also titled M, features David Wayne as the killer, Howard da Silva, Martin Gabel, Luther Adler, Steve Brodie, Raymond Burr, Walter Burke and Norman Lloyd, directed by Joseph Losey.
Set in Los Angeles, the child killer is hunted by both police and the local mob, as in Lang's version. Da Silva and Brodie are detectives investigating and Gabel is the crime boss concerned about increased police activity, which hinders his operation.
Film Noir Guide: “Wayne gives a fine performance as the pathetic pedophile, literally marked with an ‘M’ for murderer, and Adler is excellent as Gabel’s alcoholic mouthpiece, who must defend the killer before a jury of his peers—thieves, cutthroats, and racketeers. This is a good remake of the superior Fritz Lang 1931 film, which starred Peter Lorre as the child murderer.”
What Red Eddie will say about this one?
N.S.: He might note that card-carrying Communist Howard da Silva was a “martyr” to the “witch hunt,” and that Norman Lloyd is presently 104 years old, and last worked as an actor in 2015!
Fritz Lang’s original is on my Top 100 list. He invented some methods in that movie that went on to become standard, like the parallel montage of the two simultaneous conferences, one of the criminals, and one of the police, each of which seek to bring in the killer, with a crook in one conference finishing the sentence of a cop from the police conference. (The foregoing sentence is a loose translation of a passage from the excellent German Wikipedia entry on Lang’s M.)
Friday, April 26, 2019
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:45 a.m. ET (and Sunday at 10 a.m. ET) is Joseph Losey’s Remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 classic, M, Starring David Wayne, and with Howard da Silva, Martin Gabel, Luther Adler, Steve Brodie, Raymond Burr, Walter Burke and 104-Year-Old (!) Norman Lloyd
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5 comments:
A few weeks ago, discussing Border Incident, Eddie wailed about da Silva's victimization by the "witch hunts." He said week before last John Garfield died at 39 due to "stress" caused by HUAC.
I wonder what kind of "stress" Garfield, da Silva, Lloyd, and company were under compared to American soldiers and Marines on the front line in Korea?
THE NEXT STEP IN HOLLYWOOD'S RACIST ATTACK OF WHITES--A MOVIE ABOUT A CRAZY WHITE GUY,STALKING "NICE" BLACKS,WITH INTENT TO KILL(of course blackie will win out).
GRA:This ad just showed up on TBS.An innocent black couple being threatened by a white guy.Demonization,anyone?Here's the storyline from Imbd:
Scott and Annie Russell(black) couldn't be happier after buying their dream home from a mysterious and lonely widower named Charlie(white guy,Dennis Quaid) in Napa Valley, Calif. Their newfound paradise soon turns into a living nightmare when Charlie -- still strangely attached to the house -- begins to show up and interfere in their daily lives. When his erratic behavior turns to obsession, the young couple soon find themselves caught up in a violent confrontation that threatens to destroy everything they hold dear.
GRA:WTF is wrong with the moviemaking industry,Madison Avenue and TV,that they have to portray whites as stupid,evil and murderous?These are some sick executives running our "entertainment"industry.How many whites,by the way,are going to go to this flick--in a theatre full of hootin'and hollerin' blacks,that are getting wound up to kill whitey?You'd have to be crazier than the white character in this white hating movie,"The Intruder".
--GR Anonymous
Part 2:I happened to have TBS on(as background noise) and "The Intruder "commercial came on,which I just told you about.Part two of this story is the MOVIE that TBS was showing,that the ad appeared on--a vile piece of racist "comedy" called "Fistfight".
It stars IceCube as a violent negro teacher who spends the entire movie threatening a meek,white teacher(Charlie Day).This movie insults white people in a different way than "The Intruder",it shows a white man,totally afraid of this black thug,unable to fight back.Every scene shows the white teacher with fear in his eyes,because earlier in this piece of crap movie,the black tells him,on the last day of school,he's going to beat him to a pulp.
IceCube tells him to,"Be a Man!!!:
The white guy says,"I,I,I can't."
That was the first hour and 15,the rest of it,I could've cared less,WHAT happened with this garbage.The movie will most likely be repeated on TNT and TBS--this is a warning for the rest of the readers to avoid it--unless you like getting pissed off about what kind of movies are being made today.
NO ☆s out of possible 5.
--GRA
I just watched M (1951). It's close to a scene-by-scene remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 version. According to Red Eddie's intro, the critics blasted it and it did nothing at the box office. A movie about a child murderer didn't exactly draw. Fritz Lang chortled the 1951 film was so bad it cause his 1931 classic "to get the best reviews I ever had."
Eddie whined about poor Howard da Silva, Joseph Losey, etc being "blacklisted." da Silva continued to work. Losey changed his name, went to England, and directed critically acclaimed nihilistic junk.
M (1951) had some similarity to The Sniper (1952). The "stop me before I kill again" trope. Serial killers supposeldy "can't help it." Losey wants the audience to feel sorry for David Wayne's child killer.
A leftist doctrine of the time was criminals weren't responsible for their crimes. Poverty is the root cause, driven to do it, childhood abuse, etc. Nobody can help it.
Around 1960 it became "white racism causes black crime." Some variants are still trotted out when considered necessary.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12 am ET (and 10 am ET Sunday Morning) is White Heat (1948). Directed by Raoul Walsh, with James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Steve Cochran, and Margaret Wycherly.
Film Noir Guide: "Cagney shines in his role as a psychopathic, mother-fixated killer, who fears he may follow in his old-man's footsteps and die 'kicking and screaming in the nut-house.' In the meantime, he suffers from excruciating and debilitating headaches that can be relieved only by attention from his loving Ma (Wycherly). O'Brien, Cagney's cellmate and surrogate mother, is an undercover cop who plans their escape so he can trace the dough from Cagney's last big heist--a daring, daytime train robbery. Mayo, usually portrayed as the all--American girl next door, is sensational as Cagney's femme fatale wife. Cochran plays the gangster's rival, who is having an affair with Mayo. Cagney, who became a star with Public Enemy in 1931, marked his return to the genre with an explosive performance. This is an intense and explicitly violent film noir, with a climax that gives the ending of The Godfather a run for its money as the most memorable in the history of American crime movies."
At the end, Cagney shouts one of the most famous lines ever.
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