By David in TN
friday, april 4, 2025 at 8:37:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Richard Fleischer’s The Narrow Margin (1952) with Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White, Don Beddoe and Paul Maxey.
Film Noir Guide: “McGraw plays a tough detective assigned to protect a mobster’s widow who’s traveling by train to testify against her late husband’s cohorts. Noir icon Windsor is the woman McGraw is assigned to watch. Beddoe is his careless partner, and White is the classy lady who McGraw fears might be mistaken for Windsor.
“In a setting that’s already claustrophobic, a corpulent passenger (Maxey) wanders suspiciously about the train, making corridor passage tricky. The hard-boiled McGraw and the sarcastic Windsor are believable in their obvious distaste for each other, and the suspense works well thanks to the menacing bad guys and the fast-paced plot filled with surprising twists. Remade in 1990 as Narrow Margin, with Gene Hackman and Anne Archer.”
David in TN: One of the best films noir, The Narrow Margin was on Noir Alley seven years ago.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Here's a funny Charles McGraw anecdote: En route to a location shoot in Texas via bus, stuntman Charles Horvath stuck his head out the window and yelled, "I'm Charlie McGraw, and I can lick any man in Texas!" McGraw begged him to stop, but he kept repeating the threat! When they got to the hotel, McGraw signed in and told the clerk, "If anybody asks for me- I'M NOT HERE!"
-RM
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, 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.
Post a Comment