Film Review: 711 Ocean Drive (1950)

Also known as: Blood Money (working title)
Release Date: July 1st, 1950
Directed by: Jospeh M. Newman
Written by: Richard English, Francis Swann
Music by: Sol Kaplan
Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger

Frank Seltzer Productions, Essaness Pictures, 102 Minutes

Review:

“Time wounds all heels.” – Mal Granger

711 Ocean Drive was showcased on TCM’s Noir Alley a few years ago but it happened to air on a weekend that I was traveling, so I missed it. It’s since been in my Prime Video queue for a really long time but I finally got around to checking it out.

The film stars Edmond O’Brien, who is always dynamite in these sort of pictures. He’s no different here, as he commands the screen every time he walks into frame.

However, Otto Kruger also has an incredibly powerful presence here but when didn’t he?

Both of these guys are the things that make this picture work as well as it does and frankly, they kept me captivated and at full attention even if I thought that the script was kind of weak.

I like the premise about a telephone repair man finding a way to intercept horse racing results. However, even for the time, the premise and how it’s done in the film seems pretty far-fetched. If horse racing results are delayed from the east coast to the west coast, couldn’t mobsters just get other mobsters on the phone from across the country and get them to read them off the results as they happen, live? Landline telephones pretty much worked like they do now. So while I liked the idea behind the premise, it doesn’t feel wholly fleshed out in any sort of logical way. And if it was this way back then, I need to build a time machine to show these halfwits how it’s done.

Anyway, I’m being nitpicky.

That setup is there just to get the story moving, right?

Facetiousness aside, looking past that issue, I do mostly like the movie once it gets rolling. It’s well acted, as I’ve stated but it has a hardness to it. Hell, we see a greedy, double crossing shitbird get murdered by a car crushing him into a pier railing! That’s some hardcore stuff for 1950!

In the end, this movie is more good than bad, I guess. It just ultimately left me underwhelmed and baffled.

Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: other noir films like The Miami Story, Johnny Allegro, The Killer That Stalked New York and Escape In the Fog.

Vids I Dig 131: Razörfist: Film Noirchives: ‘Murder, My Sweet’

 

From The Rageaholic/Razörfist’s YouTube description: A wisecracking detective. A bombshell blonde femme fatale. Missing jewelry. A mysterious murder. It’s getting awfully noir in here.

Film Review: Saboteur (1942)

Release Date: April 22nd, 1942 (Washington D.C. premiere)
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Written by: Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison, Dorothy Parker
Music by: Frank Skinner
Cast: Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane, Otto Kruger, Norman Lloyd

Frank Lloyd Productions, Paramount Pictures, 109 Minutes

Review:

“Very pretty speech – youthful, passionate, idealistic. Need I remind you that you are the fugitive from justice, not I. I’m a prominent citizen, widely respected. You are an obscure workman wanted for committing an extremely unpopular crime. Now which of us do you think the police will believe?” – Charles Tobin

I love that Starz has a ton of Alfred Hitchcock stuff up, right now. It allows me to delve into some of his lesser known pictures from a time when he wasn’t yet seen as a true auteur.

Saboteur is a spy thriller film-noir that follows an aircraft factory worker that goes on the run after being wrongly accused of sabotage, which also resulted in the death of his best friend.

Barry Kane (played by Robert Cummings) travels from Los Angeles to New York City in an effort to clear his name and expose the real saboteurs who are led by Charles Tobin (played by Otto Kruger), a respectable member of society but really a pro-fascist sympathizer.

Ultimately, this is a thrilling road movie that sees our hero encounter a lot of people that are willing to help him and do him harm. But it is all about the great final sequence, which takes place on the Statue of Liberty and will certainly make you think of the Mt. Rushmore sequence from North by Northwest.

While not my favorite Hitchcock film, it is hard to deny the great craftsmanship that went into this. It is superbly directed, the acting is good and the cinematography by Joseph A. Valentine is very pristine. It doesn’t have the same visual style that would become standard with noir but this also came out at the very early stages of the classic noir era. So it doesn’t use a high chiaroscuro style but it still utilizes contrast well. I absolutely love the shot from the opening credits scene.

In retrospect, and I’m not sure how people saw this in 1942, the film feels like a really good B-movie with a mostly B-movie cast. The budget, due to some of the larger sequences in the film, make it feel grander than something simple and low budget but it just has that sort of B-movie style but with a layer of quality that is very much Hitchcock.

The final sequence is great though and really, the highlight of the picture for me.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: Other Hitchcock films of the era: Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion, Foreign Correspondent and Lifeboat.

Film Review: Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Also known as: Farewell, My Lovely (UK)
Release Date: December 9th, 1944
Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Written by: John Paxton
Based on: Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Music by: Roy Webb
Cast: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki

RKO Radio Pictures, 95 Minutes

Review:

“She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud. I gave her a drink. She was a gal who’d take a drink, if she had to knock you down to get the bottle.” – Philip Marlowe

I watched this Philip Marlowe picture back-to-back with The Big Sleep in an effort to compare the two Marlowe pictures and the two Marlowes: Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart. Plus, both films had the distinction of being remade three decades later with Robert Mitchum playing Marlowe in both of those movies.

Murder, My Sweet is a really good motion picture. It isn’t quite as good as The Big Sleep, though. But this definitely fits in with the style and tone of an RKO noir movie. Some people prefer this to The Big Sleep but it’s hard to top Bogart for me, especially as a private detective. Although, Powell feels more like Philip Marlowe from a literary standpoint.

Claire Trevor is pretty good in this and I liked her chemistry with Powell, even if it pales in comparison to Bogart and Bacall. The acting was top notch and these two brought their best to the table and delivered. I really enjoyed Anne Shirley the most, however. She was cute and quirky and just a lot of fun on screen.

One really cool thing about this film were the visual effects every time Marlowe got knocked unconscious. A liquid black pool would come into the frame and wash away the scene. There was also a good amount of visual flair used in the hallucination sequences. I was surprised to see how trippy this movie was, especially for something from the 1940s. It predates yet reminds me of some of the trippy sequences from Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films of the 1960s.

I also love the dialogue in this film. It is a quintessential film-noir in that regard. Powell and Trevor just trade quick witty jabs back and forth, in what is a true display of that savvy and savory noir conversational style.

Otto Kruger also makes a good villainous character. In my opinion, he steals the scenes he’s in. He just has a presence and an air about him that is pretty uncanny. Mike Mazurki plays Moose Malloy, the film’s heavy and the muscle of Kruger’s Amthor. The physical exchange between Powell, Mazurki and Kruger is one of the best of the classic noir era.

Murder, My Sweet is a solid and fun picture. Noir films aren’t typically fun, most are dark and brooding, but this injects a lightheartedness into the style. It isn’t as heavy as other films like it and since I’ve been watching a lot of noir, as of late, this was a nice break from the moodier tone that’s typical of the style.

Rating: 8/10