By David in TN
friday, april 11, 2025 at 8:54:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 a.m. ET is Andrew L. Stone’s The Steel Trap (1952) with Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Eddie Marr and Aline Town.
Film Noir guide: “Nine years after appearing together in Hitchcock’s masterful thriller, Shadow of a Doubt, Cotten and Wright reunite in this thoroughly enjoyable noir about a bank teller (Cotten) who, in a hastily planned heist, steals a million dollars from his employer. Because of its lack of an extradition treaty with the U.S., Cotten decides to flee to Brazil, telling his unsuspecting wife (Wright) that they're going there on bank business.
“Proving the ole adage that if something can go wrong it will, the hapless Cotten runs into more difficulties and bad luck than most film noir bank robbers combined. This suspenseful, sometimes humorous, tale succeeds because of Cotten’s delightful performance and Stone’s imaginative script.”
David in TN: A few nights ago, Red Eddie Muller was guest host with Alicia Malone on a series of noir films about “Dark City Dames.” Eddie Muller declared that these women (Jane Greer, Marie Windsor, Audrey Totter) “were not feminists because of their generation, but after writing about them, I have become a feminist.” Someone said Muller can be inadvertently funny. Or maybe unintentionally funny, or just say something stupid.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
THE STEEL TRAP is one I'm not familiar with- thanks for bringing it to my attention. Andrew (and Virginia) Stone's THE LAST VOYAGE ('60) is one of my favorites- what a great movie, it must have been really badly promoted to fail at the box office when it came out!
There are interviews on Youtube with the wonderful Marie Windsor, which I haven't watched yet- from the image of her as an old person, maybe it would be too depressing to see...
-RM
Actors are not to be taken seriously in terms of labeling them as "feminists" or anything else. They don't make the movies,the higher ups push the agenda.
--GRA
That changed starting in the late 50s, when liberal actors like Lancaster and Douglas started co-producing their own movies. It was Kirk who officially "broke" the blacklist by getting Trumbo to write SPARTACUS, with full credit. Well, at least that one turned out well!
-RM
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949) with Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton.
Film Noir Guide: "Ryan portrays a boxer, old and washed-up at 35, who is so little esteemed that his manager and trainer (Tobias and Helton) don't even bother to tell him that he's supposed to take a dive during his next fight. (This way they don't have to split the 50-buck payoff with him.)
"In some of the most excting boxing scenes ever filmed, Ryan (in real life a college heavyweight champion) and his opponent duke it out for four rounds, trading ferocious blows until only one of them is left standing. Before the final round, Ryan's nervous corner men finally tell him to go down. When he doesn't, the slimeballs take off with the dough, leaving Ryan to face the wrath of a gangster (Baxter) who doesn't like welshers.
"Totter, Ryan's boxing-weary wife, won't even go to the arena to watch her man receive yet another merciless beating. Veteran character actor Ford plays the kindly dressing room attendant who patches up the boxers after their fights.
"Director Wise and screenwriter Cohn, without being preachy, make a poignant statement about boxing and its sordid world. Despite the pleasant sounding names of the buildings in Wise's world (Paradise City, Dreamland and the Hotel Cozy, the battered faces, cauliflower ears and hopeless dreams tell the true story. Boxing noir at its best, The Set-Up is one of Ryan's finest acting achievements.
David In TN: Ryan plays a sympathetic character, something of a casting against type.
Post a Comment