Tag Archive: Film Noir


THE GHOST SHIP : NAUTICAL NOIR

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August 27, 2013

THE GHOST SHIP directed by Mark Robson (USA, 1943)

ghostship2A ghost ship and, for 50 years, something of a ghost film.

Producer Val Lewton made his name with RKO making financially successful low-budget horror movies like Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie.

The Ghost Ship was scuppered after a legal dispute over the screenplay led to it being withdrawn from theaters only to reappear when it entered the public domain in the 1990s.

From the title you would expect this to be a tale of a haunted vessel but the curse of the Altair comes not from any paranormal activity but from its psychologically deranged captain. Continue reading →

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THE MAD WORLD OF DR. CALIGARI

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July 18, 2013

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI directed by Robert Wiene (Germany, 1920)

Dr Caligari and Cesare the somnambulist

Cesare seizes the maiden.

One of the great things about You Tube and other online streaming sites is that cinema history is always just a click away.

Most silent classics are freely available, including this groundbreaking and highly influential work. I’ve seen so many clips and stills from it but I don’t ever remember watching it in its entirety.

This film is important because it launched the German expressionist film movement and established a stylised look that became blueprint for countless noir movies.

Made in just three weeks, the stylised jagged sets and dramatic lighting effects make this a highly theatrical production. It lays waste any notion that cinema has to contain reassuring messages or serve any higher moral purpose. Continue reading →

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SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT

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March 14, 2012

HE WALKED BY NIGHT  directed by Alfred Werker (USA, 1948)

walk“The streets were dark with something more than night”, wrote Raymond Chandler in the introduction to his short story collection, Trouble Is My Business.

This could be the tag line for practically any of the American Noir movies of the 40s and 50s.

In these films, the criminals and killers lurk in the shadows pursued by upright, squeaky clean agents of the law.

The good versus evil is literally represented in black and white terms with a moralising tone that often makes the films quaint and faintly comical. They are a far cry from the many shades of grey in today’s cynical police procedurals. Continue reading →

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