Oh, folks, it show die. People say good money to see this movie.
When they go out to a theater, they are cold sodas, hot popcorn in no monsters.
In the protection booth, everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring.
St it off.
It looked calmless enough. That's a professional models album of poses. Yep, this was the glamorous pitfall where they look the most seductive.
Forses of email, violent jealousy.
I like that. I don't care what you like or what you don't like.
Torments of unfaithfulness.
I met her a couple of months ago.
While I was on a case.
What about these kids? Somebody told him a lot of things about her and me?
Are they true?
Yes?
Then I must hate.
Urraging theory of a guilty conscience.
You'd better call the police.
I just killed a man.
Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host, Mike White. Joining me once again is mister Ian Burnell. Hello, friend, also back in the booth as mister Philip Marinello.
What do you say we hang up this call and take a drive to South America.
We are kicking off November twenty twenty four with a look at Andre Detat's Pitfall, released in nineteen forty eight. The film stars Dick Powell as John Forbes, an insurance man who is leading a life of quiet desperation. He's tired of getting dropped off at work by his wife Jane Wyatt as Sue Forbes, and being humiliated by his son. When he gets onto the case of Bill Smiley, who embezzled some dough to impress a dame, he sees a
chance to have an adventure. We'll be talking about that Dame Mona Stevens played by Elizabeth Scott, and the heavy who menaces them JB McDonald played by Raymond Burr, as well as spoiling the movie as we go along. So if you don't want anything ruined, go track down that movie right now. It's even available over on archive dot org as a colorized version which should be taken out and shot. So Ian, when was the first time you saw Pitfall? And what did you think?
Sir?
I love film noir and I've been watching film noir double features for the last four decades at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, mass which is the cinema where I do my regular podcast, and they've been running week long, month long summer long noir programs for longer than I've been alive, often in conjunction with Eddie Muller, Foster Brooks and other noir writers or members of the film noir
found day. But the thing about film noir is that they share a lot of similar themes and plots and actors, and they tend to have interchangeable titles unless we're talking about,
you know, the Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity. So often when I settle in to watch what I think is going to be a film I've never seen before, based on the title and the cast, and maybe like a one sentence synopsis in the Brattle calendar, I often find myself realizing, Oh, I've seen this movie before, maybe in the back end of a double bill, like fifteen years ago, though frequently that doesn't really happen until like twenty or thirty minutes into the picture. This was the opposite of
that scenario. I settled in to give this movie another look, and a little way in I realized I had never seen this movie before. I was confusing it with another nineteen forty eight noir with Raymond Burr as a sadistic, heavy Anthony man's raw deal. So this ended up being a first time watch for me. I ran it a few months ago off the just Crappy the SD copy that's streaming on Amazon Prime, and then I watched it a second time off the restored Keino Blu ray. But
I love the film. I love how straightforward and almost ordinary it is. There are not a lot of convoluted twists and turns, and even the dialogue is very matter of fact. It's not the kind of coded, double entendre laden dialogue that we think of when we think of film noir, which is one of the things we love about film noir obviously, but this is the refreshingly mature and direct movie about fairly ordinary folks who just make a couple of bad decisions and then try to deal with them.
It Philip out about yourself.
This has been on my radar for a while. I've seen some people talk about it. It's on my list of Keino Blu rays to pick up on sales eventually. But I yeah, this was also one for me that I had not watched before. I was familiar with a lot of the people involved, but yeah, earlier this week was my first watch, and then I watched it again today and I exactly on the pages Ian my first UH letterbox one sentence review was just how powerful this was in its simplicity. Like I love all of the
noir tropes. I've been watching noir for quite a long time as well, and mar was kind of like my gateway to UH being like the next level of my cinema journey. And I think one of the like I've done Norvember before, but I think I've done a few Noir's just one off with you here and there, and
it's something that is always very captivating. But something like this is just as exciting because it does the things that film noir does so well, while also whether it's intentional or not, subverting a lot of the things that you expect, and it it felt so refreshing.
So I came to this one through Quentin Tarantino, of all people.
You even need a filmmaker, right, Mike.
Well, he's a really good gateway drug, of course. So I had the script for Reservoir Dogs, and on the first page of the script, he thanks a whole bunch of people. He thanks John Lucadar, he thanks Timothy Carey, Lionel White, Andre d. Toath, and I don't remember who all else. Probably I think he thinks Chilly and Fat, not Rango Lamb yet. But with Andre to Toath, I
was not that familiar with his work. And this is still early nineties, so I don't know if you guys remember that big book at the video store where it was like the catalog that you would have and you could look up different activists. This might be way before your guys's time. I don't know, but I looked up Andre to Toth and I was just like, okay, and I wrote down all of the movies that he had directed.
I went up to Toronto and was at Sam the record man, and they had just an amazing selection of VHS tapes, again dating myself, and I found Pitfall and I was just so excited. I found Pitfall, and then I found Fingerman and Fingerman had Timothy Kerey in It was pretty tough to find at the time. I don't know if that's been restored, hopefully it has. And then this one with having Dick Powell in it, but directed by Andre de Tod and I said, okay, let's check
it out, and I fell in love with it. So those ninety four ninety five something like that is when I saw this for the first time and just really
really liked this movie. And I'm so glad that we're able to talk about it because it feels there's a lot of noir tropes, like you guys said, but at the same time, there are some twists and turns on here where I just really didn't expect it, Like we have to talk about the fan fatal and just how different Elizabeth Scott is as a falm fatal versus you know, your your phyllis dietrix or any of these other like sex pot I need a man to manipulate and get
him to do my bidding. Doesn't feel like she really is looking for that. It doesn't feel like she's a spy woman hanging out in a web just waiting for a fly to come in.
No, not at all. I was going to say, like not to get too film browie, but I was going to say, like, is she even a femme fatal, Like how are we defining that and does she even qualify?
Well, I think she qualifies. I know felm fatal has become shorthand for an evil, manipulative woman, but I think the pure definition of the term is more a woman who causes the downfall of a weak man. It doesn't necessarily have to be because she's duplicitous or out for her own gain. She can just be beautiful or vulnerable or in a tight spot, and the male protagonist ends up making choices that he knows he shouldn't make, but he can't help himself because he's smitten with this irresistible
quote unquote fatal woman. But you know, she doesn't have to be fatal in the sense of evil, And I don't think John Forbes is an especially weak man, but he is bored, he feels trapped in his domestic life. He knows he should leave Mona alone, and he gets several warnings to leave her alone, which I think is part of what makes her qualify as a fem fatale, because like, he knows what he's doing, He knows he
shouldn't be cheating on his wife. He knows Raymond Burr has the hots for this woman and kind of wants to do anything, including possibly kill him, but at least beat him up to keep him away from her. So you know, he pursues her anyway, and he comes to regret it, but it's no fault of her own, but it still makes her a fem fatale.
I think, well, it's so fascinating because typically like I think of, yeah, like the Double Indemnities or the Postman Always Rings twice, things like that, when Mona finds out that John is married, she's taken it back, like she's not going for him, like the progression of their relationship throughout this movie, especially the second time I watched it. Just like he has said, like this is just like
this has a lot more realism to it. It's a really well told story, like all the pieces and the dominoes, how they all fall is just like done very well, but it's not like you can feel the strings. Like this is very much a story, but it doesn't feel contrived and super heightened like a lot of noir does that. We all love it, just it feels like, oh yeah,
like that could genuinely happen without too much imagination. Like a guy not wearing a wedding ring, doesn't talk about his wife, makes very small compromises, and then gets himself into some awful situations.
Well, he does wear wedding ring, but he wears it on the wrong finger, on his pinky.
Okay. I couldn't tell if that if that was that, or if that was like I.
Did not see that on the Amazon SD version. I had to wait till I saw it the Blu ray to get that detail.
But yeah, I.
Didn't know if that was like a symbol of like, oh, he's a successful insurance man. I could not tell what that was.
I kind of wonder if he gained some weight after he got married and maybe he had to switch it over. But he's doing that even when before he meets Mona, like in the car with Jaden Wyatt, and that's that's the thing, like him being in that very weak position of being driven to work by his wife. You know that feels very emasculating to me in that and then he gives her that little speech before these where it's just like I.
Leave the opposite exactly four minutes after five, takes six minutes to walk to the corner where Charlie picks me up at exactly five point fifteen, takes thirty two minutes to drive home, and as we hit a couple of stop signals, I'm kissing you on the cheek at exactly.
Five fifty oh man routine getting you down again.
I don't know.
Sometimes I get to feel like a wheel within a wheel within a wheel.
And fifty million others. I don't want to be like fifty million others.
Oh but you're John Forbes, average American backbone of a country. I don't want to be an average American backbone of the country. I want somebody else to beat the backbone and hold me up.
We've been reading Time his geography book again, Glamor's Bonio, Rubber Plantations, and Dusty Dames.
Well, it sounds a lot better than Glamour's Olympic Mutual Insurance.
Company, I think, speaking of which we're here.
Oh well, see it exactly five fifty.
Gives her that peck on the cheek and she's just like, hey, wait.
A minute, I'm getting a little bored back kiss on the cheek too.
Thanks, you're welcome.
And then his kid, that whole thing with this kid, it's like, oh yeah, So and So's father was in the war and he won this and that, he got the Silver Star and this and that, and he's like, what do you get, daddy. He's like, you know, like basically get like.
All your father got the good Conduct Medal for oh, beat clusters.
Really, when did I do Jimmy his father only got the Silver Star?
Son? I don't think i'd do that. If I were, you might sound like boasting. Fan hold it man, you too? You served him? Num I did saga? Well, how'd you lose your eye? Fucking round in the office.
We were shooting paper clips at each other and one of the damn foods hit me.
Now you know what.
Those fucking metals on your coat?
Well, and this one is for taiping' and this one is for dot champion, and this one is for ciphering, and got up.
It might sound like bragging that you got the metal of conduct, you only got the silver Star. Jane Wyatt has this amazing line where she's like, you know, he kept the Japs out of Baltimore or something, you know, like just that's totally, you know, condescending, as you said, Like so many of the lines of this are very emasculating, but in such a funny way. It's not heavy handed. It feels very organic. Like the rest of the movie.
It feels very natural. The dialogue feels natural. I love Jane Wytt in this movie because she's not some nagging, weak or clueless wife in the book that this is based on. She's dealing with like a complicated pregnancy and she can't really get out of bed, so she's kind of helpless, which makes Forbes like more of a jerk in the book, but it also makes her less of a formidable presence in his life. In the movie, she's
funny and sassy and sexy. She meets his like gloom and doom and his cynicism with really good humor.
Their rapport is great, Like, he's not in an unhappy marriage, he's just kind of in like a midlife crisis. Like when he's kind of reminiscing back talking about their high school days, he's like, you're voted prettiest and I was voted most likely to succeed. What happened? She said, well, I had a baby. What happened to you? Like she was just like gently ribbing him. It wasn't like a put down. She's like, hey, like get over yourself, Like, let's turn the life we have into the one we want.
Like, man, she's someone who can deal with honesty in a marriage, which is another thing we don't often see in noir pictures. You know, She's like yeah, yeah, She's like a kind of an ideal I mean, obviously she was the wife on Father Knows Best, so in many ways she was an idealized American wife later in her career.
But like you know, this is one of those movies where I often find myself like, there's a lot of movies that are either whether it's you know, a film noir or a movie like Damage, where I'm just like, you can't identify with a protagonist because I'm in love with his wife so much. I'm like, that's the actress I'm more attracted to. That's the character I'm more attracted to.
But I still like in noir movies, I still find it compelling, like you do identify with Forbes because he does seem like just such an ordinary schmo.
I love the part in the book where Mac and we'll talk about the differences a little bit more. But Mac says to him, how's your wife? And then he goes fine. I said, without thinking, then I thought, all right, I thought plenty S almost had a miscarriage. She was still taking those primo and tablets and opium. She's been in bed for over three months, not allowed to move at all. I get the connection. He nodded. I thought
you'd be interested. I'm like, oh, so you can't have sex with your wife, so you just want a little strange then, buddy.
Those are both very interesting dynamics. And for the movie, I kind of like the changes that were made again, like because the way they take all those things that we're used to, it's kind of like those punches land much stronger and you kind of don't see them coming. And I know I don't want to jump to the end, but I mean just the way everything falls, and then the climax of this movie. At first, like the very first time I watched it, I mean I was like, what, like,
what is going on? But then you kind of think back and you look at everything that went there, You're like, wow, that was really subversive and really honest and really genuine and sensational in a way that life is sensational.
Yeah, the first time I watched it, I thought like the ending. I was like, oh, this is like the tact on Hollywood ending. And then like the second time I watched it, I was like, oh, actually not at all, Like this is actually the perfect ending, and it's really an atypical ending because it is so direct, like because of what she is talking about in terms of reconciling their relationship. You don't you don't see scenes like that at the end of most Hollywood nos.
In nineteen forty eight. Like it's brutal, it's hopeful, it's kind of beautiful, it's very like it's really like if you've been in a marriage and you've had those conversations at all, Like it it felt so real in a way that yeah, nineteen forties Hollywood movies were not at all.
Yeah, Like it's not the fatal attraction ending where it's like, okay, like problem solved, family reunited, everybody's good. It's like problem solved. Like he's not going to jail. You know, yeah, he's still alive, he's still married.
He eight dead.
But you know, as she says, like I don't know if it's ever going to be the same.
Usually noirres like jail or dead.
Well in Port Elizabeth Scott is off to jail and she doesn't get that closure with him at all, Like they like miss each other by seconds. He seears are going off. He could call to her, but he doesn't. He just leaves, and this poor lady is getting carted off to jail. He's as guilty as she is. He killed the man in cold blood. She did the same, but in order to protect herself from this total creep. Raymond Burr plays a wonderful creep in this movie. He's
just amazing. From the first moment where he looks kind of little because he's sitting.
Down, he was fantastatic.
Oh my god, his shoulders look like they're gonna go off the size of the screen, and he's got this tiny little head.
He's in that cartoonishly big suit.
He's always like that in movies of this period. He's a really fast I mean, as a fat guy myself. I love big actors who photographed well. Brian Deannahey is kind of like a personal hero, and I love how imposing Raymond Burr is. Like he's almost as big as Sydney green Street, but he doesn't have that big head, and he's not an old man like green Street is. He's very big, but in a sexy way. And those giant suits so are kind of part of it. Like he's like swimming around in all this fabric, but it
doesn't weigh him down. It almost makes him buoyant. I have an older friend who just loves Perry Mason, the old black and white version, and she's watched like every single episode, like the way Star Trek fans watch like Star Trek episodes, and I watched a few of them with her. And he's really huge in that show too,
Like he you know, but he's like young. He's running around, he's like bending down on the floor to like check out a body, and then he gets up and he's like running to the door, and he's just so big. And I'm just still not used to seeing that in any film or TV show really of any era, to have like the dramatic lead, the handsome dramatic lead, be so incredibly obese. He's not just overweight, he's an obese man.
And obviously that's used wonderfully in movies like Rear Window and stuff like that, but I just find him kind of fascinating in this era, and especially in this movie.
We should talk about the book real quick, because the book. In the book, he's a cop and his plan is, Hey, I sent this guy, Smiley and his partner. They were per snatchers, I think it is, and I sent them up up the river. But Smiley's got this really hot wife, and I really want to get with her. This is where the logic gap comes in. He somehow wants Forbes, who is a screenwriter in the in the book, which would have.
Yay, he's a Hollywood screenwriter.
Would have kind of put it into a little bit of a lonely place type of area. Though he's not a psychotic. It's Mac the cop in this one, who's psychotic. And so he sends Forbes off because he knows Forbes' wife is on bedrest and wants Forbes to get it wet. And then I guess he wants Forbes to dump Mona so he can sweep in the logic there is really well, yeah.
He wants Forbes to break her in, like to dispel any loyalty she might have to her incarcerated husband if he kind of like cross if she crosses that line and maybe feels regretful, you know. But now she's already done at once, so what the hell, what's the second time?
So he can swoop in and really, yeah, he can do the big seduction after the sort of failed guilty seduction, and Forbes like reluctantly agrees, but he falls for her and they start this affair and that's you know, McDonald sees that as a big double cross because their buddies in the book, like he's he gives him like real, like true crime facts from his cases that the Forbes the screenplays exactly.
Well, yeah, well then Detalthin Bowers did such it. Like man, all of that is fixed perfectly for a movie that sounds like an interesting book. But man, that's those are some bold, very smart changes.
It was very interesting and very well written in my opinion anyway. Especially there's some scenes where Forbes losing it and he's still trying to work, still trying to get the screenplay done. He's got the most understanding boss in the world who really cares about him. It's kind of like Keys from Double Indemnity. And then he's there popping Benny's like crazy in order to try to get through work. He can't get Mona off of his mind. He's worried
about Mac. He's got all this stuff, and the writing is such that you just feel that that speed that is going through his veins and just the confusion that he has. He almost has a psychotic break from taking too many bends of dreams.
I'll add that to my list I don't read a ton of noir pulpy stuff, but I would like to at some point, I'll throw that on the list.
I read a lot of noir when I was in my twenties, you know. That was when I first really discovered the film genre, and that led me to wanting to read Chandler and Hammet and you know, all the sort of classic noirs. I had never read anything by this author, Drattler. Is that his name, Jade Ratler. He was all so pretty not a prolific screenwriter, but he wrote a bunch of films, including Laura, the quintessential Auto Preminger, you know, film from nineteen eighty four nineteen forty four.
He also wrote called Northside seven seven seven, which was made only four years later, in this same year, forty eight. But it's an early example of like a shift in crime stories that I noticed when I was writing a
piece for my blog about nineteen forty seven. The post war era, the film noir era is all about criminals and private eyes and people who work outside the law and look down at law enforcements dysfunctional and not like fully rebuilt after the war, and everything's still all upside down, and there's all these forgotten men and women who are like being forced back into the kitchen after like being
in the workforce. And the nineteen fifties we see this big shift from cynicism to optimism that trades poetically cryptic detective narratives for clearly drawn police procedurals and all that.
Not all that, but a lot of the shadowy, expressionistic style of film noir is in somewhat cases replaced by the pseudo documentary realism of location shooting in real cities, like all the new waves in Europe were, and police procedurals become really popular in film, but especially on TV, where you know, the wheels of justice always seemed to work out, and calin Northside seven seven seven is one of these many like ripped from the headlines docu drama
style crime tales like The Naked City and He Walked by Night and it's a I think it's a really good movie with Jimmy Stewart as like a crusading journalist who's trying to right the wrongs of ten years earlier, and spoiler alert succeeds.
The idea of making Mac a private eye and it feels like he was a cop, and it feels like something probably happened and that's why he's not on the force anymore. But he has ties to the force, so he's quasi legal, like he's he's in that position where he can manipulate the system still but yet manipulate everything.
He gets information, he's privileged, he has access to Smiley to manipulate him. Later on, it's yeah, it's yeah, he's positioned himself very well, and you're kind of like, man, this guy is such a brute and an idiot, Like how is he getting by And it's because of the systems that he's manipulating.
Yeah, and he holds that over both of the other characters, like he basically forwards his connection and you know, he's like, you know, I know how the police work way better than you two. Do you know you you have no alibi, you have no you know, credibility in terms of what you're accusing me of. And yeah, that's you know, he just he just has them both.
Mac is like a big brute idiot, yet he like Smiley, John and Mona, like all of them, He's like, I'm in charge. And it's that's such an interesting dynamic, Like you don't really see that very often as well.
Oh yeah, he's so smart when it comes to riling Smiley up. I mean the way that Smiley's like, yeah, this guy got me drunk and gave me a gun. I'm like, yeah, he's just setting you up, man, like setting Smiley up. He's setting up Smiley, He's setting up Forbes, you know. And this is all just to get Mona all to himself and for a while he succeeds.
Is that not setting off any alarm.
Bells for you, guy? What do you guys think of Elizabeth Scott and what do you think of Mona?
I mean, I was never a big fan of Elizabeth Scott, and after listening to Eddie Muller's commentary on the Kenot Blu Ray, I can see I'm not alone. But she's a very unique screen presence. She always reminded me of Jenna Rollins. Not because of her acting, obviously, she's nowhere near the great actress that Jenna Rowlins is, but she's
got that deep voice. The cadence of her speech is similar, and her face she has a similarly wide mouth, and her eyes are they seem kind of farther apart than a normal human being, which gives her a kind of
unsettling look, even though she's obviously quite striking. But I think she's great in the movie like and and, as as Eddie Muller talks about in that commentary, like she was cast because andre to Toe thought of her as an ordinary woman as opposed to a gorgeous Hollywood starlet, which you know, technically she was a gorgeous Harleywood starlet.
But she doesn't look like a knockout instantly, even in the glamour photos that he's that are his like first introduction to her, when he's like looking through her portfolio there, like, she still doesn't look like a great fatale that you're gonna like sack. You know you're gonna risk your marriage.
For No, it's not the postman always rings twice. I'm gonna throw it all the way.
Yep, you could just see it floating away. Yeah, exactly.
She's going to learned how to lock her door though, because he just walks right in, and a lot of people just walk right into her apartment. It's like, come on, lady, locked that freaking door because yeah, he walks in. Ease her portfolio because she's a kind of a fashion model and that whole weird thing, Like we've seen that in movies before. I particularly remember Vertigo where it's at and
what was that the one with gentlemen preferred blondes. I think that all of the main female characters in there were models at an apartment store where it's like, oh, I want to see that dress on this woman. I want to see that, And I'm just like, what is this weird thing where just men?
I mean, how many it's in so many movies, how.
Many perverts we're taking advantage of that, right, Yeah, It's like and the way that Raymond Burr is threatening to her, like, oh, you don't want to show me the dress, he says very loudly. So we're supervisor here is and it's just like, no, no customers. I was right, I don't want to get fucking fired.
He's like, I got the money.
Yeah.
Now that those scenes are in so many movies How to Marry a Millionaire? Like there's all these movies and movies in the thirties too with like I'm trying to think there's a really good one with the Roslyn Russell. Was it or maybe it's I can't remember, but like this was just a profession, Like if you were a model, it didn't necessarily mean you were like going to a
photographer studio every day. You were going to a department store and showcasing these outfits, like you know, like a private fashion show for really just ordinary customers, not for like super wealthy New York elites, but just like regular folks.
They didn't have the Internet. They couldn't be like, here's our archive of photos. They're like here's our people.
Or it's a Snapchat filter to see how I look in this particular outfit.
They didn't even have glossy color magazines that you could get in the mail. Yeah, you just had had to go down.
Well, yeah, it's such a I want to get back to Mona. But yeah, that's an interesting phenomenon, you said, Mike, Like it is very You can see so clearly how that can be abused and misused and how kind of skivy it is. The only then this isn't even modern. The only semi modern thing I can think even in that world world is Will Smith and enemy of the State, and that's like very seedy, and like that was a
whole point of it. And it's like, yeah, like obviously this type of system is kind of built for abuse in ways, because again, money is power. Like a lot of the noir, a lot of the most powerful noir made in the US is about the systems that run people over. I mean, we talked about that a ton in our Naked Kiss episode, and I just saw that
over and over here, especially on my second viewing. Just the way Mona with all three of the male relationships in this movie, whether she wants to have them or not, just the way that she deals with unwanted behavior, unwanted attention with Smiley. The whole reason that any of this happens in the movie is that Smiley is so in love with her. Whatever his financial or economic predicaments are, he didn't feel, as a man in America, that they
were good enough. So he goes to robber. He goes to embezzlement in order to quote unquote provide what he feels like. She's like, yeah, I didn't even I don't want this stuff, like the fur coats and the diamonds. She likes the boat, but she's not asking, hey like turn to crime so that she's like, you're nice to me and I like that. But he feels that way, so she has to deal with the ramifications of this unwanted actions from him. Obviously, all of McDonald's stuff from
her is unwanted. But the first time John goes, he literally just walks in our house and she is either so used to that kind of behavior or she's so like good at her defenses because it's like, there's a strange man in my house, Like I'm going to walk in and off from a beer rather than be like confrontational to him.
I love what Muller says on that commentary track where it's like aid noir film has already happened, you know, like Smiley was the star of his own noir and it goes away to jail and this almost becomes like chapter two. You know, this is almost the sequel to Smiley's story, which I'm like, yeah, and really there could be a third part to this, because yeah, the way that this ends was so ambiguously where it's like, well, she's in jail now, and now he's back with his
wife and things are not very good here. Things are going to be very rocky for John going forward, as in his entire life.
And then there's the prequel, the McDonald's story about how he got fired from the police force and became a private detective quote unquote.
That's a pulp novel I'd read.
Oh yeah, he's probably one of these guys where he's just like, Okay, you can kill you can shoot six people without getting fired from the police, and he grows to like it so much. Yeah that once it gets to seven, then he wanted eight, then he wanted nine, and he just got very hungry for that death. He's so fascinating. That's what I like about movies that feels like all of these characters live their own lives and
are are very well formed. Doesn't feel like we're just watching cardboard cutouts walk around.
To the fem fatale question, I think Mona's first interaction with John, when she finds him in there and he's looking at her photos, that's just so unique because she kind of clocks him as like a regular guy, and she's not quite trying to slam him, but she just reads him really well. It's like, you're kind of like a boring guy who goes by the rules. And then
she gets like a little saucy. She's like, what, I bet you're probably gonna be with your boys later on, having beers being like, Oh, I met this baby, but I kept it all business like. That's probably projecting a lot of former traumatic nor stories that have happened in the past or her on him, like he's not exactly that guy. He's gonna go home to his wife and I have the same boring routine. But like that I feel like is maybe kind of the first seed of
some of that. And then she kind of dumps out her whole story and she kind of asks him for empathy because she presents him, Yeah, I know you're all business, but think about my life. I'm just a girl trying to get on in the world. And the engagement ring I receive from the guy the universe brought me was a stolen one and that's just my lot in life. Can you give me like a little bit of care and concern here and not just treat me all business like.
She's not seducing him, she's not coming on to him, and she's not belittling him. She's really kind of reaching out for a human connection because her life as a model, who knows what that's like, and her fella's in prison, and she's just trying to reach out for a connection. And I felt like that was innocent and unique.
And again, I don't know if I'm a great in line you know where she just says, you know, I mean, not a line, it's the truth. She just says, you know who hates very nice to me, you know. And so she actually sees him as an nice guy, which is not the way we as an audience are perceiving him. Like we're perceiving him not as a bad guy, but
as you know, not a great guy. He's like an insurance guy who's like, you know, collecting, yeah, and he's collecting like the stolen, the the embezzled goods from like the poor what you know, would be wife of the of you know, the guy who was put away. And it's like it's just a it's a seedy job. It's not pleasant. He doesn't carry it out in a particularly nice way. But to her, because she's used to mostly
shitty guys, she she's like, you're a nice guy. And she even says it to him, and he's like me, I'm nice. Like he doesn't realize when she says, I meet a nice guy and you know, he does something nice for me. It takes him a second to realize she's talking about him.
Yeah, Moda's bar is very low, very low, tragic, right.
Dick Powell is just always so good as these NOAR protagonists. I love the story of Dete hiring him because he knew that Paul was a schmuck, as he put it, because Paul was going through something very similar in his life where he had kind of blown up his life by having an affair. And he's just like, yeah, he'd be perfect for this because all can play kind of a sad, sack put upon guy. He can be very very charming, which you know you have to be that
if you're gonna go after Mona Smiley here. But yeah, it's just he plays that role so well, and especially those scenes where he's just like, what are we gonna do tonight? We're gonna play Bridge? Yeah? We play Bridge every single week, you know, talking with this coworker maybe that's his boss and the insurance agency. He's just like, can we not do that for once?
You know?
Even his son is like, I'm so sick of this town. It's like, wow, is that coming straight from your dad? Or is just like are you going to be another little John Forbes when you grow up and be like, I'm bored of this, and you always drive me to work and we always kiss on the cheek and we always have the same pot roast on Wednesday or whatever. It's just like he's so sick of the routine and just sees this opportunity. But yeah, to hear his kid go, when are we going to take a vacation? I'm sick
of this town? I'm like, okay, all right, five year old.
Yeah.
I always when I was younger, I am confused Dick Powell with William Powell, you know, because they're both you know, film noir people and comedians or people who start in comedy movies and so like when I first saw Murder My Sweet, I was expecting to see William Powell as Philip Marlowe, and I was like, I was like this, ay William Powell, Like who is this sort of unattractive fellow here? And it wasn't until I started to watch all the Warner Brothers backstage musicals with William Powell and
Ruby Keeler and Joan Blundell. I love that genre almost as much as I love film noir, Like gold Diggers of nineteen thirty three is one of my hundred favorite movies. Just love that movie. But I can see why Powell wanted to shed his like song and dance man, nice guy, gee whiz aw shucks, juvenile persona. And I know he lobbied really hard hard to play the lead in Double Indemnity, and obviously he lost to Fred McMurray, who was also a nice guy or you know, played a lot of
nice guys. But you know, after he got to do Murder My Suite, he did all these film noirs and it really changed his career. And it's there aren't a lot of these careers where you have, you know, because he was never a child actor. He's not like Mickey Rooney or anything, but he was you know what they used to call a juvenile like he was young and he was a hoofer and he played you know, I don't think he really played the piano, but he played a lot of characters who played the piano in middle age.
I mean, he's not a particularly attractive guy when he's young, but in middle aged he's not conventionally handsome. And in Murder My Suite there's a scene where he's topless for quite a bit and it's almost shocking to watch it with contemporary eyes, you realize why most leading men of this era did not take their shirts off unless they were Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglass. So he just he really.
Every time I've seen him at it always strikes me that, like, this guy really should be playing exactly the kind of character that he's playing in this movie, like an insurance salesman, an ordinary guy who's got, you know, a pretty good life. You know, he's got a kid that loves him, he's got a wife that loves him. But you know, it's the grind. It's the daily grind that he can't stand.
And all of us have been in that position one time or another, and it's just, you know, he makes the film noir choice, you know, which lots of people make, you know, but he's got to pay for it, and unfortunately, you know, the person who really pays for it is Lizabeth Scott's character.
I really like e Lizabeth Scott. I know, not everybody does. She's kind of an acquired taste for some people. Kind of reminds me of is a Kara del Ven, the one who is the enchantress in Suicide Squad. I think it's the dark eyebrows with the later. I think if they did a Elizabeth Scott story, she'd be really good
at that. But I love the Husky and all that, and I just find her so genuine in this movie and so nice compared to some of the other roles that she's played, because she can't play film fatal pretty darn well. I'm trying to remember if it was she in Dead Reckoning.
I think, yeah, she's in Dead Reckoning. She's in the Strange Love of Martha Ives speaking of Ivers with Kirk Douglas. I think that's Kirk Douglas's first movie, I think, And you know she I think she's good in those movies. Well, I don't love her and Dead Reckoning, but yeah, like she's not. I don't think she's bad. I don't think
she's a bad actress. She's just not one of those one like when whenever her name would come up in credits, when you know, back when I was watching all those film noirs for the first time, I was never like excited the way like if Barbara Stanwick's name came up, you were like, oh, Barbara Stanwick, you know, you know, So I think it's just that and and you know, the more I've learned about her, the more I'm like, Oh,
I guess that was kind of her reputation. But as any Mullet points out in his commentary, this is a really good performance and it's a great script. You know, she gets to say all this dialogue that tons of characters in movies like this would love to say but never get the opportunity.
I can't remember if it was Muller or if it was somewhere else that I read that was it. Burt Lancaster or Barbara Stanwick refused to work with her because they thought she was so untalented.
I think both of those people felt that way.
I thought she did very well in this one.
I've not seen much of her work, but she was a knockout in this And again she played the simplicity so well, and I feel like that takes a lot of talent, because you're not just stars can carry big moments, but to make like an everyday kind of character real, Like, that's talent.
Oh the other moment when I talk about his son humiliating him after Raymond Burr shows up and just beats the shit out of him, and I love that low angle shot up of Raymond Burr and he's just pounding on you know, what's supposed to be Dick Powell. You just see him fighting over and over again, and then it's like, oh, gee, my dad says it was two of them, because that's how many people it would take to you know, if it was just one, my dad could have beat him. And I'm like, yeah, it was
just one guy. I mean, it is surprising when he comes back later and manages to beat up match.
He gets his it like sometimes those skinny guys, man, you gotta watch out for him. But yeah, he when he gets when he gets an act by surprise, he gets his in pretty good. That was chilling and clearly an ex dirty cop.
With bold to go after someone who's three times your size and weight.
Class and that threat of you know, if you mess with my family, I'm gonna kill you.
Yeah, and it's just Raymond Burr's character is so narcissistic in the movie, Like he he even like you know, as you said, Lizabeth Scott tells him off. She's like she tries to tell him nicely that she's not into and when he doesn't take no finanswer, she's like, all right, I'll just make it plain for you. I have no interest in you. I want you to leave me alone. And he's just like, but what about what I want?
And then like you know, when he goes to confront Dick Powell the first time he like goes to his house, he waits for his car to drive up, and then he's just like, hey, I told you I wanted that girl. Stay away from that girl. Like it is really really creepy.
Yeah, and then he just like when when he's like leave me alone, he's just like boom boom point just like punches him about seven times, like really, yeah, just kicks the shit out of him.
In front of his own house. No, he's a socio path. Yeah, he didn't catch him in an alley. That's like that's a in a.
Yeah, it's again, you know, even n film noir, it's a little shocking to see a character like that. And he really he doesn't see anything wrong. Like that's the thing that's so creepy about him. He's like, I told you I wanted that girl. Like, so lay off for at least three weeks, you know. I mean it's it's really harsh. It's really harsh. It's where where she works. It's like the department store.
There's some interesting process shots in this movie. There's one where she's I think, trying to call him. It looks like she's at a store and it's just her and another actress, and then behind it it's all rear projection. There's one process shot that I absolutely love. It is when Forbes is on the ropes towards the end of
the movie. It's about I don't know, an hour and twenty minutes in or so, and he's completely dejected and he's just wandering down the street and it is so Dick Powell on a sound stage wandering and then I don't know if it's red projection at that point or if they put this in later. I imagine it's rear projection. It's just him walking past all of these storefronts. And what's great is that you see the reflections of all the stores on the other side of the street, but
you don't see his reflection. It's like he's so taken out of the world that you don't see his reflection in those storefronts, and you so should because of the way that it's being lit. You should really see his reflection.
That was a really strong scene that gave me very strong eyes, wide shut vibes. I was like, Oh, I wonder if this was in the back of Kubrick's mind at all.
He's very funny. Yeah, and you even get the brown derby being reflected in the mirror or in the windows and stuff like that's really nice, very very Hollywood here.
Maybe maybe he's a vampire. I'll just kidding. If you want to see Elizabeth Scott in color. The year before this, she made not a very good movie and she's not particularly good in it, but it's kind of a crazy movie called Desert Fury, which is a three strip Technicolor. It's not really a Weststern, but it's it's definitely worth seeing, and you know it's most of her films are black and white, but that's that's one where it's like full technicolor.
Interesting streaming on the Criterion Channel with over a three star average.
Why not?
Oh good?
Yeah, check it out. Yeah, I saw it on thirty five milimeter just a couple of years ago, and uh.
Yeah, I need to check out Dead Reckoning that I'm going to bump up on my list.
Yeah, I actually saw that where the Nitrate Film festas helped George House. Yeah, I was very fortunate to be able to see that there. I was really excited to be able to see, you know, Amy Humphrey Bogart on the big screen. I'm excited to see.
Speaking of three D, but you you were talking about your first introduction to Andre to Toath earlier, Like my first introduction, aside from the fact that you know, he made House a wax and he's a famously cycloptic director.
He only has one eye, and that's one of the most famous early three D movies, but my first introduction to him was in Martin Scorsese's film, you know, Journey Personal Journey through Film History, where he is one of like seven directors who are interviewed in that movie with an eyepatch, you know, and they're all just old and grizzled and they've they're all like missing an eye, and you're just like, what happened to all these men? Like, but these guys didn't fight in the war? Well john Ford,
johnsh Ford did, but yeah, Fritz Slang yep and Nicholas Ray. Yeah, I mean it literally is like six or seven eye patches, you know, everybody. We saw that at the Harvard Film Archive and everybody came out wanting to like wear an eye patch. You know, did you ever have.
A big screening of that? Yeh, I should give out eye patches for the favors. I mean, I think the setup of the I guess, climax of the action, and then the fall. We've talked about the fallow it a little bit, but again, I thought it was both simultaneously really great storytelling and almost kind of just procedurally believable. Like it is sensational that mac Will would basically pick up Smiley, spring him from jail, booz him up, give him a gun like that. That's a very noir premise.
But then if you boil that down, it's okay. This is a guy, This is a jealous lover trying to gonna defend her honor in a way, like he's a little bit off, and he he has a conversation with Mona where he's like, I can forgive you, but I can't forgive him. And I think that the theme of forgiveness is interesting because nah, not being an apologist for what they did at all these forties movies. Obviously they can't show everything. They weren't explicit things like that, but genuinely.
I don't know what your guys's read of the movie was. My read was that their relationship was not all that developed. There was obviously like the relational intimacy, and they ki the one time, but I did not read that as they were always getting together kissing, Like I don't really necessarily know if I think that the film presents them as having like sexually consummated there a fair even was your guys's read.
I think it's pretty clear because you know, there's a scene where he leaves his briefcase at her apartment and she returns, she's like, you left this, And also, as Eddie Muller points out, like the scene the sort of morning after scene, you don't see him, there's no evidence of him there. But she gets out her bedroom and she looks she's been styled to look like she had a pleasant night of intercourse. It is very subtle.
It is then it was very subtle.
Okay, Yeah, I agree with you that it doesn't feel like it's gone on for a long time. My opinion, my read is that they had one night together and then she instantly.
They're going like bunny rabbits in lust.
Yeah, still not good, but it wasn't deep. It's not like these It's again one of my favorites, if not my favorite, it's not the best, but just like my personal favorite, Postman Always Rings Twice was one of the first ones I read, so in my mind like I can't help but have that sometimes be like my meter for how I rate him. Like those two are like madly and deeply in love quote unquote, yeah, they are
in lust. They are burning in lust. These two people kind of have a flirtation and an attraction, but then like it's not developed. Okay, let's say they had one night together, obviously a violation, but then like when it is explained to both of the partners, it's so interesting. But anyway, so the progression of events, so Smiley gets all amped up, goes over to John's house to confront him and like to kill him. Like John's intention or smile these intentions. Rather he wants to do something and
maybe he wants to kill him, I don't know. But then right away Mona calls to warn him, and again very noir but also very real. She's like, I don't want this to happen. She's very kind of straight ahead going obviously it wasn't good. I'm sorry. Let's get on track. Let's get out of town. Like obviously things are weird here. Ma's definitely not leaving me alone. So for anything else, we need to get off of this guy's radar. But let's just leave, like I we are together. I want
to be with you. Let's build a life. Let's leave the crime, leave all this comp this complicated situation. Let's just leave. And he goes, Okay, sounds good. After I go, maybe he'll this guy like she doesn't want him to go to jail, and she is begging him, so she calls John to hopefully diffuse the situation. And I mean, I was surprised again because John being this kind of
milk toast insurance midlife crisis. He goes to his dresser and pulls out like a legit gun, not just like some six shooter, like a legit like this is my gun, like he knew how to use it. And he kind of goes to a place where he can't go back, and you see Mac just sitting in the car like very exciting. Mac can't wait for somebody to die because both of these guys are in his kind of narcissistic
like kind of crazy brain. He's like, both of these guys are in my way, like like in Max's perfect world, like they cartoonishly shoot each other simultaneously and they're both gone. But for him, it's like one of these guys is gonna shoot the other guy and then maybe they'll be in jail or something. And then he goes to give moan of the bad news of oh Man, Smiley went over to John's and John shot him. So John's gonna be arrested and Smiley's gone, So pack your Bag's hun like, let's go.
But I love it even more that it's the police radio that he comes over in turns on that police radio and then they report the address.
He plays it for her on her radio, and I was like, is the police frequency? Like any homeowner with the radio that did rub up against me? As like any homeowner with the radio can hear what the police are saying at any time?
Yeah, that was odd. That was what was odd too. When John is just about to confess the affair to his wife and then his son cries out. His son is having a nightmare, and his son is like, oh, there was somebody here or something, And I'm just like oh, I was thinking, Oh, well, Smiley's outside, or it's Mac outside the window, because you can just imagine Mac like some sort of looming creature outside. Yeah, because he walks over to that window and I'm just like, hey, you know, close that window.
Man, Like, No, yeah, I thought that was going to be Mac. I thought that was going to get dark for a second there.
Because he's up on the second floor though, too, and I'm just like, oh, if you saw a creature outside the second floor. But no, Instead he just blames the comic books, you.
Know, those darn comics.
No one of those Busby Boy adventures.
Yeah, I love that, the Buzzby Boys, little subtle, subtle callback to Busby Berkeley, those all those films he made. Just to go back to your the noir aspect of it and the exaggerated aspects of it, it really is just Mac, the Raymond Burke character who who makes this
a film noir story. This could very easily have been a forties melodrama about a guy, an insurance agent who you know, cheats on his wife one time, and there can there might even be a character like Mac in a melodrama version of this, And you know it complicates situation for him and this woman and him and his wife, and it's a like a little bit of a love triangle.
But because the Raymond Burke character is so exaggerated, such a menacing route and manipulates all these people to such a and you know, somehow is able to tune in police radio on a normal frequency like and all these things like that's what makes it into a noar like. And then the other characters, especially Lizbeth Scott's character, fit into noir patterns, you know, like, and they fit into
these tropes. But it could easily be a melodrama. There's so many great melodramas from that same era that features some of these same actors. There's a great Joan Crawford movie called Daisy Kenyon, which is a you know, a not that dissimilar, you know film in the sense of it's a love triangle two men and one woman in that case. But you know, you could you can feel how this movie could work out and how this story
could play out in different ways. If you read the book, it's much more pulpy, much more sexy, much more you know of a of a noir story. And that's again, I think another thing that makes this movie a bit of a outlier, and one of the things that makes it so interesting.
His malevolent oblivion focus kind of necessitates the only way for him to not ruin Mona's life and take her is for him to be dead. And that's what and Mona knows that she's like okay, and she says in the very first scene that we see her, Hey, I've also got a gun, and I mean it's seated, it's and it also would make sense that a woman who ostensibly has experienced the things that this character has experienced would have a gun, and she takes care of herself.
The movie that happens after this for Mona, it's unfortunate with his background being a cop, but also if they know he's bad, I was like, is she gonna actually go to jail? She's got a lot of eyewitnesses who can say, yeah, this guy is really harassing her all the time in several public places, So I was like,
is she gonna actually go to jail? But whether she does or she doesn't, killing a man in your home is not something that you easily walk past eye either they both and I didn't realize that until my second viewing. I was like, Oh, that's also really great subtle storytelling. They both had to deal with killing somebody basically in their home and kind of how similarly and dissimilarly things in the story that we're given work out for them.
Oh yeah, he says, we've got the wrong person up there. But you know, he said, white Anglo Saxon Protestant male, he's going to get away with murder.
Literally, Yeah, Raymond Burr probably wasn't packing a gun when he went over there, so he I mean, I still think she could, you know, she could get off on a standard ground kind of thing, especially because it seems like the cop really does not want to put her in jail. Yeah, the wrong person's up there, should be you guy. Yeah, well he had a guy coming. He had a drunk man with a gun and a grudge coming into his house. Like that makes sense.
But that conversation with I don't know the lieutenant or prosecutor or whatever, where he or John bears his soul and he's like, yeah, you're guilty, but you're gonna go free. And that's characters in noir, and they're often seeking redemption or a life raft to.
Know.
They usually don't find what they're looking for. But him, he gets it. He gets it legally, and then at the very end he gets it relationally and there is almost hope.
You're like.
His wife is like things are never going to be the same. But I thought about leaving you. But we're married, we have a son, we have a life. I care about our life, and I would like to build it back if we can. And you're like, I don't know if I've ever seen that in a noir.
And he even says like, are you sure you don't want a divorce? And it's just like shocking to hear that term.
I'm sure that was stunning in nineteen forty eight, where the male character who done this is like, you want a divorce? Like, that's what I deserve. Like in the Precinct, he's like, I deserve to be in jail. You're not going to get jail on the ride home. I deserve for you to take the get in the house and leave me. You're not going to get that either, And he's like, Okay, what all the noir characters and all
the other movies want. He's getting. But it also doesn't feel like a success either, which because of all the moral compromises. Like this is just a genius story in that way.
You've got me thinking, like Mona Stephen's defense attorney here, because okay, she's established president. If we recall when he was threatening her, When Raymond Burr was threatening her, she said she had to like ask the floor walkers where she works to drive her home and make sure she got home. Okay, so not only where there are witnesses at that one time that he came and watched, but she told all these people that she works with that this big threatening guy is like, you know, creeping her
out and showing up at her house. And they've even had to like drive her home and they can testify, so they're gonna get her off.
He went to the station to sign out Smiley and then somehow but.
Those guys are his buddies, like they might cover for him.
But like it's a fascinating story. Like the more I think about it, I'm like, this is thank you Mike for having me on for this one. This is this is a gem.
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was great to finally catch up to this movie. And like Annie Muller says, like this was a bit of a lost movie because it was an independent production, and very often those movies become orphans because nobody knows who owns them. After twenty years, you know, they get bought and sold and repackaged a
million times. So there weren't a lot of I mean, that's why I never saw this movie at the Brattle or the Harbor Film Archive or any of these other theaters that I used to go to constantly to watch these movies. But there weren't print of this circulating around to see. So it's great that you know they've they've restored this UCLA and the Film Noir Foundation.
Thank you UCLA and KENO.
This is great. All right, we're going to take a break and play preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Morning sir, good morning, Great, nice day. Evan's reports a pog rolling in.
I have to stable saddle up Blackie. I'll want them after breakfast. We'll tell the Chief. I'll go over the personnel reports with him at fourteen hundred. Hi, sir, good morning, Chief, Good morning, sir.
Eve. Can we get married?
Sure? Didn't I say yes a long time ago?
No?
No, I mean right now tonight.
All right, I'll always.
Love you, so I guess it doesn't matter how soon we begin together.
Be all right?
If a pick here at eight o'clock tonight, and I think you'd better wear a dress just this once A shame to me already, huh sure, but I love you.
The chaplin doesn't, though, and I think he might like a dress.
You're not going right away.
I have to relieve chief warnikey, Oh.
Mary, what's this about my husband?
I'm on my way to relive him for child.
Oh, don't be in a rush. It'll do him good to miss a meal. Honestly, I'll be bad when he's discharged, just so I can find him down a little bit.
We're going to be married.
Well, I should think you would be. I mean tonight, the sor the better.
What is this a conspiracy?
I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll wash your hair for you this afternoon. I bought some new fancy shampoo stuff.
That's right. We'll be back next week with a renoir noir woman on the beach. Until then, I want to thank my co host I and Philip so Phillips. What's the latest with you, sir?
Still running the substance? I have lost my editor, so I'm trying to get on a more regular release schedule, but you can find me over at the Substance Podcast with regular substantive cinema episodes coming out. I got some great ones in the can. If you're listening to this in no November you will, hopefully if I get the episode all done, be able to hear are Pal, Mike White and semi regular guest here Spencer Parsons talk about Sam Fuller's Shop Corridor. Got some other fun stuff coming
up as well. But you can find me at the Substance Pod on the Socials or the Substance where you get your podcasts.
And Ian how about yourself?
Ah.
You can read my reviews and thoughts about film on my blog film five thousand dot com and on letterbox that Iananthony Brownew. And you can listen to me regularly on the Brattlefilm podcast. Film noir fans might enjoy the big episode we did last September, a retrospective of Lauren Bacall on what would have been her at the birthday.
Well, thank you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting my mouth off, please check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at Winningwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.
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