Friday, January 15, 2021 at 5:40:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Roy Rowland’s Witness to Murder (1954), with Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, Gary Merrill and Jesse White.
Film Noir Guide: “An interior designer (Stanwyck) witnesses Sanders strangling a woman in the building across from hers. When Sanders sees detectives Merrill and White pull up in front of Stanwyck’s apartment, he quickly hides the body in the vacant apartment next door and plays dumb when the cops arrive to investigate.
“Merrill and White shrug it all off as a nightmare, almost convincing Stanwyck herself. The spunky lady investigates on her own, but can only come up with circumstantial evidence that Merrill, who by now is romantically interested, writes off as coincidence and ‘woman's intuition.’
“Meanwhile, former Nazi bigwig Sanders decides that Stanwyck is a real danger, especially now that she’s taken to hanging around with Merrill. Stanwyck is excellent in a role similar to one she played in the more famous Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and Sanders wonderfully overacts.”
A mediocre film, in my opinion. Last week in his outro, Eddie Muller called Stanwyck’s character a “feminist.” A few months ago, introducing The Seventh Victim (1943), Eddie called Kim Hunter’s character “an early feminist” as a “spunky girl.” Eddie apparently doesn’t think there were spunky American girls in the 1940s. And long before, since the 17th Century, in fact.
N.S.: A few months ago, Red Eddie remarked that, as far as he’s concerned, Barbara Stanwyck was the greatest actress of them all.
With that said, anytime Red Eddie discusses what he sees as “gender roles,” race, or “McCarthyism,” his IQ drops by 30 points, and he becomes completely dishonest.
One of the things one sees a great deal of on Noir Alley is how many weak scripts and second-rate directors great actors like Stanwyck, Sanders, and Sterling Hayden were saddled with during the 1950s.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 am ET is Born to Kill (1947) with Lawrence Tierney doing his psycho shtick. Also featured are Claire Trevor, Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook, Audrey Long, Esther Howard, directed by Robert Wise.
Film Noir Guide: "This one is all Tierney. He's outstanding as one of the most violently disturbed psychos in all of film noir, giving even Robert Ryan in Crossfire a run for his money. Trevor, a recent divorcee, is a visitor to Las Vegas who discovers the body of a man and a woman in a Reno rooming house--two bodies left by you-know-who in a fit of jealous rage. Without contacting the police, she leaves for home but, coincidentally, ends up on the same train with Tierney, whom she had been ogling in a casino that evening. The hard-to-swallow plot develops slowly, with Tierney eventually dropping Trevor to marry her wealthy half-sister (Long). Soon he's suffering from the delusion that he can run his wife's newspaper (something he wants to do so he can crush other people's lives) and is hurt when sister-in-law Trevor won't support his dream. Trevor, meanwhile, is becoming more and more attracted to Tierney, and the sexual tension is almost unbearable for her. Tierney's pal (Cook) is the only controlling influence in his life, and even HIS hold is tenuous. Slezak plays a portly, Bible-quoting P.I. hired by Howard to find the murderer of her only friend. Born to Kill, also known as Deadlier than the Male, has become a cult classic thanks to the excellent performances of Tierney and Howard and Wise's brilliant direction."
In his intro last week to Witness to Murder, Eddie Muller again said, "The greatest actress ever, Barbara Stanwyck." This is something few would dispute.
Eddie went on with "It may have more resonance today, especially with women." And "a proto-feminist slant." He then said:
"I might argue that. Frankly, I'm afraid Stanwyck would come back and sock me if I did say it. She had no use for politicized interpretations of her work."
Oh, Barbara Stanwyck would sock Eddie Muller all right. She was right in line with the views of her then-husband Robert Taylor and Robert Montgomery on the subject of Communists.
See Barbara Stanwyck's Wikipedia entry.
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