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| marantzo |
 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:39 am |
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| And in the old days they didn't push you out the door into the next page that doesn't have any posts on it. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: Kiss Me Deadly is one of those movies that works despite all the reasons why it shouldn't. Robert Aldrich directed, and that seems to have made the difference. The flick redefines cheesy, it's hammily acted and sometimes absolutely totally completely ridiculous, the production values are shoddy beyond belief, but somehow it's amazing. I own it.
Another movie like this is Detour, which had a budget of approximately two cents and shows it all the way, but it's a stunning film.
The "no one locks their door" phenomenon is even more laughable in D.O.A., which is perhaps my favorite sort-of-film-noir of them all. In D.O.A., If people locked their doors and inquired "who's there?" when someone knocked, there would literally be no movie. It's the equivalent of "no cell phones." Cell phones have totally changed the way film stories have to be told.
Love D.O.A with a passion. Don't know how it survives the slide-whistle-as-erection motif and go on to convey the necessary noir gravitas, but it does.
Detour is great, too. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:48 am |
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Location: New York City
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| Joe--The slide whistles in D.O.A. are indeed obnoxious, although the rest of Tiomkin's scoring is quite evocative and moving. The movie is quite surprisingly powerful, and Edmond O'Brien's Frank is a terrific character. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Agree completely. In fact, there is no noir I have watched as often. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:51 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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DOA -- kind of the prototype of a whole subgenre of you've-been-murdered-already (more recent versions use radioisotopes or bioweapons) films, in which the murderee attempts to find the murderer.
BTW, I rarely lock my back door. Live on a dead end, between two properties with dogs, and no stranger could even make it to the back yard without raising a canine shitstorm. Lincoln recently topped the list of nation's cities with lowest unemployment rate, which probably bears some relation to many neighborhoods here where door locking is still lax. (I'm five miles from campus....don't move here and attempt this anywhere near campus...) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:57 am |
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Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: Agree completely. In fact, there is no noir I have watched as often.
Ditto. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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The thing about D.O.A. is how random the events seem (not technically, when the whole plot is revealed, but emotionally, as you are watching it). Noirs are usually predicated on an evil woman, who is pretty clearly an evil woman from the first, so it's hard to worry about what happens to the man happening to you. But D.O.A. presents such an ordinary situation: guy on vacation, opportunities of casual sex abound, and BAM his life is ruined. Makes for a good analogy with deadly s.t.d.s, pregnancy, etc. It really feels like it could happen to anyone.
By the way Bart, you might as well Map Quest your house while you're giving us all this information about how to rob you. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:57 am |
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| I first knew about D O A in the summer of 1950 and it opened at the theatre in Winnipeg Beach. Everyone was talking about it and Edmond O'Brien, who was new to me. I'm not sure why, but I didn't go to see it until a few years later. Strangely, The Asphalt Jungle and Where the Sidewalk Ends also played there that summer and WtSE was the only one I went to see. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:13 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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"Deadly
Kiss Me"
(how the titles play out)
takes place in a Calif city.
People in apartment buildings don't have their doors locked. Mike stashes the roommate in his apartment -- the last place they'll look for her, though they know she's with Mike ... huh? -- and tells her to put on the chain to be safe. I mean, better than not putting on the chain, but those things never survive a kick or two. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| For some reason, I had thought Kiss Me Deadly was a Sam Fuller movie. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:51 pm |
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Joe Vitus wrote: For some reason, I had thought Kiss Me Deadly was a Sam Fuller movie.
I think it was I The Jury that was a Sam Fuller picture. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:37 pm |
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Location: Houston
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| I haven't seen that one. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:19 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Someday it might be possible to look this all up online.
Fuller didn't direct I, The Jury.
Fuller's best known noirs are Pickup on South Street and House of Bamboo (which I've never seen). |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:18 pm |
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| Well, Harry Essex was the director. Not a name that I recall. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| The only Mickey Spillane movie that has any cachet at all is KMD. |
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