The Glass Key: Kicking off "Noir November" with a hard-boiled masterpiece

The Glass Key - Stuart Heisler - 1942 

★★★★★-Starting Noir November off like a rocket with this masterpiece. The second screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel of the same name, a peak, twisted, hard-boiled tale.

Read the book over the summer. Loved it. Back then, I knew I was going to start off the month with this flick. I’ve probably watched 300 noir/neo-noir in the last five years, minimum. It’s been quite a while since I was this excited about a noir flick. 

Directed by Stuart Heisler. Mostly remembered for this and the 1944 propaganda film The Negro Soldier, a documentary-style recruitment piece aimed at African Americans to get them to enlist in the military during World War II. Also, the Humphrey Bogart film Tokyo Joe, and the 1949 film Tulsa, starring Susan Hayward, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Found success with another Hayward movie in 1947 for Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman. 

Veronica Lake is the female lead but not the femme fatale. She was never more beautiful. She’s not great but is obviously a star. Stars Alan Ladd as the hardboiled detective. Mostly think of him as Johnny Morrison from The Blue Dahlia and Shane from Shane. Brian Donlevy plays Paul Madvig, the rich, corrupt politician at the center of the murder who can’t control his daughter. William Bendix plays the thug, as is his way. He’s always great. Complete psychopath in this flick. Kicks a photographer in the face as he’s getting taken out of the police station kind of guy. Perfectly cast.

Film thrusts you in the murky waters of political intrigue, corruption, and romance, with a side order of murder. Crooked politician Paul Madvig (played by Donlevy) is a political boss who's decided to swap his shady dealings for a shot at redemption. He's throwing his weight behind the reform candidate for governor, a move that's unpopular with the criminal underworld. He's also got his eye on the governor's daughter, Janet (played by Lake, who's damn cool). Enter Ed Beaumont (Ladd), Madvig's right-hand man and fixer. He's got to navigate this labyrinth of lies and deceit to clear his boss's name. It's a tale as old as time, guy meets dame, falls for dame, gets framed for murder by gangsters. 

Drew me in immediately. Madvig immediately makes his entrance by throwing a guy out of the window into the pool for giving him shit for talking to a candidate from the opposition party. This guy gets it, and doesn’t give a flying fuck. Donlevy sort of stole the show with his performance. 

Film flies by way faster than an hour and 25 minutes. Still manages to hit all the main beats of the novel. That’s what I love about the genre. You get right into it with an economy of engaging plot with dubious characters, snappy dialogue, and brutality. Plus, beautiful cinematography and women that are to die for.  

Lifeboat - Alfred Hitchcock - 1944

★★★★★ - Not the usual Hitchcock fair. I still absolutely loved it. Overall, it has a parable or allegory feel. Hitchcock obviously hates himself some Nazis. The only good ones are dead ones. This is a lesson that plays out throughout the film and is still applicable today.

Made during WWII. Written by John Steinbeck. The film follows a group of Merchant Marines on a lifeboat after their ship is sunk by a Nazi U-boat. One of the survivors pulled out of the water, however, ends up being a Nazi that they struggle to keep in check. This guy is a gaslighting mother fucker you want to see get his almost immediately.

The best stretch of the film comes early when the group has to deal with a survivor suffering from gangrene. They realize that they are going to have to amputate his injured leg. He's a real trooper, but it's obvious that this is really going to suck. They use the little bit of rum they have to get him drunk and knock him out so they can perform the procedure. The nurse among them, who has never done anything like this, has to rely on the German who claims to have been a surgeon in civilian life. No one likes this but it has to be done. The scene goes on forever, building up over minutes. It's excruciating.

Some real trigger warning in this film, though there isn't any cannibalism. Just a dead baby, some suicide, and beating a guy to death.

The film stars a bunch of familiar faces. Among them Mary Anderson (whom I recognize from Gone with the Wind), Heather Angel, Tallulah Bankhead, who is awesome, William Bendix (whom is basically the same guy he played in The Blue Dahlia), Hume Cronyn (always great, he was married to Jessica Tandy and was introduced to me as one of the old guys in Cocoon), John Hodiak (mostly know him from Somewhere in the Night), Henry Hull (who steals the show), Canada Lee (the black guy on the ship, his character isn't too offensive for the time), and Walter Slezak as the Nazi. This film also has one of my favorite Hitchcock cameos. With so few people in the movie, he shows up in an advertisement in the only newspaper they have on the boat. Pretty slick.

Gonna wrap it up with a little bit on Tallulah Bankhead's awesomeness. Known for her sexual exploits, she is the one who gave the world “dahling”. She was only in around a dozen movies but looms large. Born into a political family, her grandfather and uncle were U.S. Senators and her dad (William B. Bankhead) was Speaker of the House from 1937-1940. While they were considered liberal in their day, Tallulah was way left of the fam. She hung out with Zelda Fitzgerald and was Tennessee Williams inspiration for Blanche DuBois for A Streetcar Named Desire. She employed gay men to care for her when she was in the throws of addiction, calling them her “caddies”. She was a fan of Alfred Kinnsey and found his research to confirm her already advanced views on sexuality. She did interviews in the 1930s where she talked about wanting to get fucked and had many affairs with both men and women. Some of the women included Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Hattie McDaniel, and Billie Holiday. She referred to herself as “ambisextrous”. She was also an extremely heavy drinker and drug user that smoked 120 cigarettes a day (hence the husky voice). Her last words were “codeine... bourbon.” My kind of chick.

Foreign Correspondent - Alfred Hitchcock - 1940

★★★★ - Love a journalist thrust in into a spy-thriller or noir flick. Main guy, Joel McCrea, has a Tom Brady look. Plays a great dumb guy who finds himself unwittingly in an international assassination plot. Shares some DNA with North by Northwest in that way.

The paper he works for in New York sends him to Europe in 1939 just before the war broke out. The publisher tells him he doesn’t want him to cover the impending conflict, but really wants him to, I guess. This is the backdrop of the story. Everybody waiting for war, but thinking it’s not going to happen but knowing it will.

The publisher is sending the protagonist because he punched a cop. This is his “punishment” instead of being fired. He’s out of control and loves his job. If this were what being a newsman was like in 2023, I’d for damn sure still be on the job.

Bunch of people I recognize but no one really by name. This guy George Sanders looks just like Jason Segal. Recognize him as the raging asshole convinced Laurence Olivier was up to something in Rebecca. He was also Mister Freeze in the Batman show from the 60s.

Female lead, Laraine Day, was not much else. This was her biggest role. Didn’t really make it. Was a Mormon, too, similar to Scientology. I can’t enjoy someone’s work if I know they are a Mormon. Other groups that ruin it are Jehovah’s Witnesses, fundamentalist, Christians, conservative, rapist, wife, beaters, and racist. If you turn out to be a Trump supporter, I cannot even look at you. There is active rage there.

Pretty great film but has some flaws. Overshadowed by Rebecca, which also came out in 1940 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. These are his first movies after arriving in Hollywood. This film is mostly forgotten, but shouldn’t be. Plus a heck of a plane smash at the end.

The Blue Dahlia - George Marshall - 1946

★★★★★- Very pretty ladies in this one with Veronica Lake and Doris Dowling (who plays the awful wife). Coming in hot, this movie. The first 20 minutes are like seven different movies. 

Starts with casual racism, however, I’m not really sure if the guy that gets called a “monkey” is not actually a swarthy white guy. Then we say that the guy who dropped the “slur” had a traumatic brain injury and has a plate in his skull. He also seems to have some PTSD and major memory issues. Turns out to be sort of a gentleman though.

He comes home to a bunch of drunks and his wife making out with some dude. Then they have this exchange after he slaps the guy shooting his wife. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I think you had better leave. My husband would like to be alone with me... He probably wants to beat me up. Perhaps you wouldn’t want me to apologize. “Apologize, darling? But you don’t have to; you’re a hero. A hero can get away with anything.”

I think this sort of thing happens a lot. Soldiers get married young before they go off to war. Come back to find their wives or husbands who they probably don’t know that well with someone else. I had a great aunt that Had some other guy besides her husband’s kid and he was basically just like, “well, get rid of the kid but I guess we will stay together and I’ll just treat you like shit for the rest of our lives.” That was before people got divorced and what have you as is this film. It looks like it’s going to be a wonderful life there, soldier. 

Before he and his wife get everybody out of the house pretty much his buddies call. They said they would whenever they found an apartment. I thought this would be like a month from then or something, but they’ve already got one, moved all their shit in, and everything like 10 minutes after tying one off at the bar/causing minor property damage.

The neighborhood has a house detective, what the fuck is that? Tell him to keep it down and pull the shades down if he’s going to push his wife around. The tone, I thought, was definitely, “don’t fucking touch her.”

This movie is just one thing after another. Find out that they had a child that is now dead. Dude starts grilling his wife about it and she went to one of her parties got wasted and then has a “car smash.” This appears to be fine legally back then. Sort of just frowned upon, killing your child while drunk driving.

Then the real action starts. Great film. Highly recommend. But be ready, this movie is a pretty demanding watch.

Meet Me in St. Louis is the greatest film of all time

Meet Me in St. Louis. A good easy watching musical. Judy Garland is such a talent in this film of innocent family merriment and stupid men. All these women could do better. Except for grandpa. He’s cool.

Garland sings the quintessential “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, my favorite melancholy holiday song. She and Vincente Minnelli, the director, met during this movie. Led to the eventual birth of Liza.

At some point all my feminist friends’ talk rubbed off on me. The women in this movie are slaves. Dad is rich but instead of sending them a college, he is marrying them off and giving the husbands a dowry. Pretty messed up. 

On the other hand, the dad is supporting like 20 people and wants to move them to New York but they totally don’t want to do this. Also, no one respects him because he’s a dick.

The little girl that plays Tootie is fucking terrible. Her acting style can be described as exaggerated. There is a good story I found about her getting her bullshit best child actor or some shit Academy Award stolen. Someone found it in a thrift store many decades later and returned it to her. She is still around at 85. Her and June Lockhart, a Garland rival, are both still living. Lockhart is 97. Most memorably from Lost in Space.

The Lady Eve is the worst movie of all time

The Lady Eve. "There's just one thing. I feel it's only fair to tell you. It would never have happened except she looked so exactly like you." ... "They look too much alike to be the same." ... "Positively the same dame!" Fucking idiot. A woman grifts a guy multiple times, and he just thinks she's a look-alike. Insanity. 

Been on a Preston Sturges kick. Added a bunch of flicks on the Criterion Channel recently. I'm not sure if I think he is terrible or not. This movie, though. The fucking audacity of this movie. Considered a classic, both my female companion and I thought otherwise. 

Gist of the flick is that a trio of grifters go to cheat Henry Fonda's character, an adventurous heir to a brewery fortune, but the dame falls in love. So after they take him for some of his money, she decides to do it again, and this fucking dipshit falls for it because he is too dumb to live. 

Movie stars Barbara Stanwyck from the fantastic Billy Wilder flick Double Indemnity as the lady grifter, the "legendary" Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, and William Demarest who is an old guy you might recognize from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Demarest or Stanwyck win the movie. Demarest is a great hard-ass straight man, while Stanwyck more or less carries the movie. 

Not exactly the wokest movie I've ever seen. A lot of stupid women talk. Example: "A girl of sixteen's practically an idiot anyway, so I can't very well blame you for something that was practically done by somebody else." Thank you, oh wise one who can't even recognize the same woman. Of course, Fonda says this to Stanwyck's character, who is grifting the shit out of him. It is insane, really. 

While Fonda does a great Lincoln or Tom Joad or whatever, he is not good at comedy. Dude is stiff as fuck. There were times when I questioned whether his character had a traumatic brain injury or something. Again--sort of hammering this home--Stanwyck comes back into his life as another person... which he believes because he thinks if it was the same woman, she would’ve disguised herself... Are you fucking kidding me, bra? I thought he couldn't fucking believe this because it was so audacious. He had to fucking know, right? But apparently not. He's just insanely dumb. He deserves to be grifted. 

Nor did I find the movie all that funny. A lot of the humor revolves around Fonda having to change his dinner jackets like five or six times. Maybe it is a metaphor or something. Plus, I think, a lot of the humor is based on close talking and the idea that Fonda has an unseen erection (see above photo)--which might actually be kind of funny in retrospect. 

Maybe you should watch this flick just to see this for the sheer bizarreness. I mean, holy shit. I'm sort of still in disbelief. Fonda is such an amazing tool that I may never get over it. 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is the greatest movie of all time

I know there's no such person as Dracula. You know there's no such person as Dracula. But does Dracula know it? Pretty fun flick. Costello, the short one, is more than a little irritating and the ending is anticlimactic, but it's funny even now and has serious nostalgia for moi. Saw this as a child with my grandma, miss her. Turned me onto it after we watched Monster Squad together. Good companion movies. Both are solid intros to the Universal monsters and are what I'd call gateway horror. Also, super kid-friendly. 

Cast is what you think it is with one exception. You have Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. They are their normal personas. Lon Chaney Jr. is the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi is Dracula. Lugosi is apparently smacked out his mind by this point of his life. Frankenstein's Monster I always thought was Boris Karloff but it's some look-a-like named Glenn Strange. There are also a couple of chicks and a pretty boy, none of whom I recognize, that play central parts. Oh, and Vincent Price is sort in like 10-seconds of the movie. He's the uncredited voice of the Invisible Man. 

Gist of the movie is that Abbott and Costello deliver wax monsters figures (Frankenstein's monster and Dracula) to a wax museum. However, the monsters come alive and take off. The Wolf Man is onto this shit though tries to warn these idiots. Costello sees the shit go down but can't convince Abbott. Also, Costello is trying to slay two chicks at the same time, I'm pretty sure. They are into him, but he's a moron. The fact that he is so dumb makes Dracula want to use his brain for Frankenstein monster's body so he can control it. Seems like something of a Get Out situation. It doesn't really hold up under scrutiny, but, again, fun. 

MVP of the flick is totally Abbott. His straight man schtick makes the movie and the duo, in my opinion. His deadpan, don't have time for this nonsense is tits. He does the funniest straight man of all time while Costello is out there trying to play hero ball. 

Holiday Inn is the greatest movie of all time

Holiday Inn. It's Christmas so I'm writing about the movie with the greatest Christmas song of all time. Love a musical. Loved this movie. Most of it, anyway. Then  we get to Lincoln's Birthday (which they celebrate in February, pretty sure they are confusing it with Washington's Birthday). Then it is holy shit. The Bing Crosby character, Jim, is trying to hide the Marjorie Reynolds character, Linda, from the Fred Astaire character, Ted, because he fucking sucks. But Ted is looking for Linda as a mystery woman he danced with on New Years and wants to steal her away. Jim's idea, to conceal Linda's identity, is for him and her to dress in blackface and do a minstrel show number of the song "Abraham". It is fucked up. AMC and other channels even cut the scene out entirely. Apparently former British Prime Minister Theresa May said Holiday Inn was her favorite Christmas film, causing controversy due to, you know, racism. I mean, other than that, it is a great film. But that shit is pretty much impossible to ignore or give a pass since it isn't like this was from the days of D.W. Griffith or something.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: With the combined might of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin working in its favor, Holiday Inn is a seasonal classic -- not least because it introduced "White Christmas" to the world.

Gist of the flick is that Astaire can dance and Crosby can sing. They both pursue the same ladies, Linda and Lila, played by Virginia Dale, who can do both, basically mesmerizing them with their insane crooning or dancing, depending on the guy. First it is Lila whom they go after. When she breaks Crosby's heart, he goes and opens a hotel that has large, extravagant holiday shows. This with the help of his new love interest, Linda. After the Astaire/Dale pairing falls apart, Astaire weasels his way into the Holiday Inn where he ends up dancing with and instantly falling in love with the Reynolds character. Crosby tries to hide her identity for a while but Astaire eventually finds her and more or less demands that they immediately go to Hollywood to work in the pictures and get married.

The plot barely matters as this is just a vehicle for Crosby to sing and Astaire to dance and those two do the shit out of those things. But if you pay attention to the plot, the movie is pretty fucked. You've got your overt racism. Then there is what a son of a bitch Astaire's character is. His modus operandi is basically wait for Crosby to get serious about a girl and then do everything he can to steal her, even as Crosby shows him insane kindness for someone who does this twice in the same movie. Dude needs his ass kicked and Crosby needs to learn to be a fucking man. Eventually, Crosby grows some balls and tells his "friend" to go fuck himself. He then gets with Lila or Linda or whoever and Astaire gets with the other one. Happy ending all around.

Of note, the song "White Christmas" came out of this movie. After Irving Berlin wrote it in some California hotel, he went back to the office and told his secretary that he "just wrote the best song I've ever written." Adding that "heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!" Not a modest one, this Berlin. And, at least in pure numbers, he was right. The Bing Crosby version is the all-time best-selling single with sales in excess of 50 million copies. Was extremely popular with the soldiers away at war during WWII. Combined with other versions of the song, we are talking in the 100 million range. Crunched some numbers and did some half-assed internet research to put this in perceptive. A single goes "Gold" when it sells 500,000 units. "Platinum" when it sells 1,000,000. A single goes "Diamond" when it sells 10,000,000. Only like 20 something songs have ever done this. This is the only song that reached over 25,000,000. No one else have even come close. Not even half way to 25 mill. That is insane. For this alone, going to say that Irving Berlin won the movie. For creating the Christmas song to end all Christmas song.