M K Aston

Film Review: Black Narcissus

Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced numerous films of note, many of them rivalling anything that came out of Hollywood. Their collaborations began in 1939 with the First World War thriller The Spy in Black, which Powell directed and Pressburger wrote the screenplay for. A couple of years later they co-founded their production company The Archers and made One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942). The two would go on to share a writer-director-producer credit until the partnership ended in 1957 and along the way they gave us such classics as A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Red Shoes (1948) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956).

Arguably their most memorable offering was Black Narcissus (1947), a wonderful psychological drama set within a convent in an isolated Himalayan valley. The stunning Technicolor photography alone is enough to imprint this movie forever on your mind and if you’ve never seen, I urge you to do so at your nearest convenience. The use of matte paintings and scale models has rarely been used with such skill and majesty and despite the fact that the landscape is clearly fake, it is lit and coloured so magnificently, that it’s all the more awesome for being so. Costumes too, seem to take on a symbolic relevance and whether it’s the godliness of white robes, the devilishness of a red dress or the honesty and frankness of being semi-naked, there’s a depth to be found in every detail we see.

The plot revolves around a group of nuns – lead by the Sister Superior Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) – who are sent to the abandoned Palace of Mopu, near Darjeeling in the Himalayas to establish a school and hospital in order to help civilise the local community. Their mountainside convent is a former harem complete with sensual mosaics and images on its walls, and making it habitable is the nuns’ first hurdle to overcome. Sister Clodagh is forced to accept the help of local British agent Dean (David Farrar) to achieve this and Dean immediately makes a hurdle of himself but in a different way. His deep-voice and hairy-chested masculinity affects the nuns to varying degrees and seems to remind several of them that they are, after all, women and as if that wasn’t enough, Jean Simmons, in a very early role, has a memorable part as a mischievous local dancing girl, who with her flowing silks and flirtatious demeanour, presents a stark contrast to the nuns’ chaste way of life.

Dean warns Clodagh from the outset that the palace is no place for a convent and later credits the high altitude as capable of playing havoc with one’s senses. It’s not long before the isolation and the atmosphere unsettles the nuns while Dean’s bullish machismo begins to affect Sister Clodagh and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron). Clodagh finds herself dwelling on the failed romance that drove her into the Sisterhood several years prior while Ruth becomes pathologically jealous of Clodagh’s growing friendship with Dean. The climate, the mystique of the local culture and the nuns’ own fallibility all play a part in this story and each of these adds to the tension as it rises like the mountainous peaks that surround them.

If this might sound less than exciting, do not be fooled. This film is a masterpiece. Full of psychological suspense and sexual desire Black Narcissus is, in Michael Powell’s own view, the most erotic film he ever made. “It is all done by suggestion,” he said, “but eroticism is in every frame and image from beginning to end. It is a film full of wonderful performances and passion just below the surface, which finally, at the end of the film, erupts.”

The climax is a riveting pastiche of music and image on a truly epic scale with no dialogue, just a mesmerising operatic symphony of sound that will turn your knuckles white. An interesting note here is that the music for this scene was scored before the scene was shot which meant the actors’ motivations and movements were choreographed to the music just as they would be on a stage. Truly, truly wonderful stuff.

The film collected two Academy Awards at the 1958 Oscar’s ceremony for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Deborah Kerr won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Sister Clodagh. It holds number 44 in the British Film Institute’s greatest British films of the 20th century and number 16 in Time Out’s 100 best British films list.

The 65 years that have passed since the film’s release hasn’t diminished its impact. The haunting beauty of the painted landscapes and backdrops and the film’s vivid colour simply adds to its lasting appeal. To see it once, is to never forget it.

Michael Clarke Duncan Dead at 54

The American actor Michael Clarke Duncan died yesterday (September 3rd) at a Los Angeles hospital following a heart attack at the age of 54. The star was probably best known for his performance as a death row inmate in the 1999 Tom Hanks movie The Green Mile. His portrayal of John Coffey, a convicted murderer, earned him numerous nominations, most notably for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Tom Hanks has paid tribute by saying, “I am terribly saddened at the loss of Big Mike. He was the treasure we all discovered on the set of The Green Mile. He was magic. He was a big love of man and his passing leaves us stunned.”

Duncan was born in Chigaco, Illinois in 1957 and grew up in a single-parent household with his mother and sister after his father left. Football was his first love but he soon turned to acting and dreamed of becoming a famous star in Hollywood.

After high school and college, he quit his job digging ditches for a gas company in Chicago and moved out to Los Angeles where his imposing size soon got him noticed. For a while, he worked as a bodyguard for celebrities such as Will Smith and LL Cool J, while picking up bit parts mostly in TV shows, but his persistence paid off and once he got the part of Bear in the blockbuster Armageddon (1998) alongside Bruce Willis, things really started to take off for him.

It was Willis who championed Duncan for the part of Coffey in The Green Mile and following this, a string of high-profile films helped establish him as a star. Other notable films include The Whole Nine Yards, Planet of the Apes, The Scorpion King, Sin City and The Island.

His impressively deep voice was in high demand for animated films and video games as well, where his versatility as an actor was put to good use. Whether he was playing a powerful and feared crime lord or an Old English Sheepdog, his talent was unmistakable.

The director of The Green Mile, Frank Darabont described him as “one of the finest people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with or know. Michael was the gentlest of souls – an exemplar of decency, integrity and kindness.” There’s no denying that Duncan will be sadly missed not only by those who knew him personally but by his fans all around the world.

The Best Bond?

In his new book entitled Bond On Bond, Sir Roger Moore says that not only is Daniel Craig the best actor to play the world’s greatest fictional spy but that he also has the best build of any Bond to boot. Is he right? Is he wrong? Does it matter? Do we care? We are talking about an actor and an imaginary character after all and the nights will continue to draw in and our taxes won’t change depending on our verdict.

Of course, there is no real answer to the question because, like a ‘best’ meal or a ‘best’ holiday destination, everyone has a favourite based on their own individual tastes. One person’s Lobster Thermidore will be another’s cheeseburger and curly fries. Paradise for some would be relaxing on an island in the Indian Ocean while for others it would be trekking across the American northwest. It’s all relative you see. Likewise, can it truly be said that John Wayne’s portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit was better than that of Richard Burton’s King Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days? Wayne did win the Academy Award that year, after all. Or was it simply two great artists doing what they do extremely well but being pointlessly compared to one another in a competition where only one can triumph?

Surely then, this is the same pointless comparison for the six actors who have so far played Bond. Each one different, each one bringing something new to the role, each one interpreting the role in their own way from their own prospective. While it’s true that some of the films are better than others, generally a result of a more rounded script, can the better films be accredited solely to the actor in the lead role? Probably not. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the strongest stories in Fleming’s series of novels but was made with a relatively inexperienced actor in the lead role and a fast-paced editing style, making for a slightly wooden Bond and a different looking movie overall. But in spite of this, with a script that leaned more towards plot than full on action while keeping remarkably true to the original story, it remains one of the more intelligent films in the franchise and a firm favourite with fans.

For me, Connery defined the role. He was tall, dark and brutally handsome. His Bond oozed masculinity, had an intrepid sense of fun and an over-stimulated libido, things that quickly became trademarks of the character. Under Cambridge alumnus Terence Young’s direction, Connery was able to portray a man who had had a university education at, among others, Eton (albeit cut short by unruly behaviour) as well as having enjoyed European adventures during his formative years. Connery’s Bond was well educated, had a certain continental exuberance and a graceful British refinement. His wardrobe was simple yet stylish, tailored perfectly to his athletic physique with an elegance no subsequent Bond has managed yet. Certainly Brosnan and Craig are well-decked out in their expensive tuxedos and assorted outfits but by comparison they are starched and look over-dressed. A case perhaps of the wardrobe department trying too hard.

There was a glamour that surrounded the character in those early ’60s films, something exotic that is no longer there. Remember, this was a time when a large majority of us had probably never been abroad (save for those servicemen and women who were stationed overseas during and after WWII) and so Jamaica, Turkey, etc would have been incredibly exciting locales to cinema-goers. Today, a much greater number of us have travelled abroad, experienced far-flung destinations like those places visited by 007 and consequently a part of the mystique of this man’s world has been removed. The same could be said of the exotic car associated with the character as well because the chances of seeing a DB5 (of which just over a thousand were built) around in the mid ’60s was much lower than catching sight of a Vanquish today. Indeed, I’ve no doubt a huge proportion of the younger (and not so younger) generation have probably even driven a Vanquish, if only via a PlayStation console. The mystery, the intrigue of the world that this most secret of men inhabits is all but gone.

The majority of us would likely admit to preferring the James Bond actor that we grew up watching. It’s that age when our minds are most fertile and impressionable and nostalgia often affects a strong influence too. Roger Moore was Bond when I grew up and as much as I enjoyed his 007 (The Spy Who Loved Me being my personal favourite of his) he never threatened to replace Connery’s face in my mind as I re-read Fleming’s novels. I loved Moore’s acting though, it was glib and humorous and highly entertaining (as it was in all he did save perhaps The Man Who Haunted Himself, which I recommend anyone to see) but his Bond didn’t seem as dangerous as Connery’s, or as real. And suddenly we get to the heart of the matter. Realism. Sure, the novels are fiction, we all know that, but they were written by a man who worked for British Naval Intelligence, a man who experienced the world of espionage and managed to translate that experience onto the pages of his novels via his writing style. And those first two movies, Dr No and From Russia With Love, were respectfully true to the writing, hence, they retained a certain realism. Particularly From Russia With Love, which involves a somewhat low key plot that concerns the acquisition of a decoding machine and the revenge assassination of Bond. Simple stuff by today’s standards but no less entertaining and thrilling for it. As for action, the fight between Bond and Grant in the train compartment is surely one of the best choreographed punch-ups in movie history. Connery and Shaw really do struggle with each other as they smash into the wooden doors and wardrobes. And they make it look so real. By contrast, today’s Bond seems to bulldoze his way over his enemies like a Terminator, showing no emotion and barely any effort as he leaves broken necks in his wake. The editing and pace of modern movies is such that a choreographed fight is less of a scene and more of a splicing together of lots of different moves.

Something else that came to define Bond’s screen character (if not his literary one) was the dry wit, the humour, the witty one-liners. Connery started it, Moore expanded it, Dalton removed it, Brosnan resurrected it and now, Craig has totally overlooked it. But wait a minute, isn’t this humour an integral part of 007’s screen persona? Take that away and you removed a part of the man. We have come to expect Bond to deliver some daft tongue-in-cheek remark after despatching a bad guy from a rooftop. However, let’s not assume that these witticisms are easy to deliver, for it takes a certain ability, a certain (dare I say it) X-factor that an actor either has or doesn’t have and some, perhaps even most, actors just don’t have it. Sometimes a joke can be seen a mile off and come across as simply too obvious, as it did on numerous occasions in the Brosnan films. Yes, they make you chuckle but they come across as having been carefully placed into proceedings by a scriptwriter rather than a flippant off-the-cuff remark by the character himself, something Connery and Moore did so well.

When Timothy Dalton took over the reins in 1987, he said he wanted to take 007 back to the books and the grittiness of Fleming’s writing. He did this and his portrayal was a great departure from Moore’s, which was perhaps no bad thing at the time, when the series was losing momentum but he took a step too far and made Bond dull, boring, sensible, unsexy. The story lines of his two films were not necessarily at fault but in his portrayal of Bond, he lacked that certain something that made him at once deadly and yet likeable and charming.

Like Dalton, Brosnan lacked that undefinable quality to be a great James Bond although he did at least bring the fun back to the series. But by this time the films were nothing more than globe-trotting blockbusters with little of the essence of the novels in evidence, save an Aston Martin and a dry Martini. The story lines were fantastic and the stunts totally unreal simply because the cinema-going public had grown used to all of Hollywood’s heroes escaping from enormous explosions with their shirt tails on fire while riding a high-powered motorcycle one handed through a plate glass window. Nowadays, the cinematic world is full of Jason Bournes and Frank Martins, riveting audiences to their seats with high octane action. So, is James Bond still unique among contemporary movie characters?

Casino Royale was a great film and according to polls, one of the most popular Bond films to date. Again though, do we credit the lead actor with this success or the screenplay, which was pretty darn close to the original story? Daniel Craig certainly redefined the role to fit him as an actor but if we are going to attempt a pointless comparison with the previous five actors, then I think it’s a little premature to label him the best Bond ever. For my money, he completely lacks the charm, the wit and the elegance of Fleming’s creation and as I said earlier, he tends to trample his enemies like a Terminator. He’s more of a well-dressed thug than a suave secret agent and despite his tuxedo, he exudes the qualities of a man who’d prefer a beer than a Martini. Yes, he may have set female pulses racing around the world with his emergence from the ocean in a scene precariously reminiscent of Hally Berry in her orange bikini from Die Another Day, but he’s made the character a lot less likeable and consequently, less fun to watch. The films themselves have become too big, too spectacular, too fantastic and because of this, the stunts and the story lines become ever more unbelievable. How wonderful it would be for the producers to return to Fleming’s roots and give us an intelligent espionage thriller once more instead of another saving-the-world mega blockbuster that is nothing more that a series of death-defying stunts strung together by an unbelievable story line.

So, is Sir Roger merely fanning the flames of the series after the relative disappointment of Quantum Of Solace or does he have a point? Is Daniel Craig a better actor than those who preceded him in the role and does he have the best build of any of them? Being the only one to come in under six feet, he’s certainly the shortest and stockiest but the best? Personally, I think Daniel Craig needs to lighten up a little and let us see that he’s enjoying the role of the world’s coolest secret agent before he gets anywhere near Connery’s portrayal. But that’s just my opinion. And we all have one.

Skyfall will doubtless make millions of dollars and ensure that Bond returns once more but at the end of day, the difference between today’s Bond films and the early ones will be explicated by the historians. Critics and fans alike already view Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger as ‘classic’, genre-defining moments of cinema. The rest of the titles in the series, well, however much we love them, they are less likely to garner such acclaim and will probably be spoken about in the same way as the majority of rip-roaring blockbusters that Hollywood churns out.

Film Review: The Tin Star

Well, I don’t know about you but my weekend was wet and windy and, compared to of late, pretty darn chilly. At least for August. Had it been more clement, I would probably have busied myself with one or two little jobs that are awaiting my attention outside. Or I might have taken a languid stroll around the park. Alas, Hey Ho! the weather kept me indoors. So what better way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon than to watch an old sun-drenched western, particularly one directed by Anthony Mann whose CV includes some of the finest of the genre ever made.

While it may be easier to recall the more famous Mann westerns starring James Stewart, of which there were five (starting with Winchester ’73 in 1950 and ending with The Man From Laramie in 1955), The Tin Star, made two years later, stars Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins. This time, instead of one main protagonist – the emotionally tortured soul that Steward embodied so well – here we have two main characters – Fonda’s laconic and sagacious bounty hunter and Perkins’ young and inexperienced town sheriff. There are no sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains, beautiful pine sided valleys or white-water gorges here either, an element that Mann captured so beautifully in those earlier films. Indeed, in complete contrast to the Stewart films, there is no travel at all involved for the characters here, not in a geographical sense anyway. The only journeys undertaken are in the characters of the characters, if you get my drift.

It is dialogue that drives this movie forward more than an cross-country pursuit peppered with gunfights, that and the influence that Fonda’s age and experience has on Perkins’ naivety. Apart from a couple of forays out into the surrounding dusty countryside, the action takes place in a little old town in the middle of nowhere. It’s shot in black and white too which seems to add to the film’s parched appearance. Also worth noting is that the film opens with a shot of the town’s main street as Fonda trots in on his horse and closes with exactly the same shot with him riding out in a buggy. Whether Mann meant anything by this is down to one’s interpretation.

And so to the plot. Morgan Hickman (Fonda) rides into town with a dead outlaw slung over his pack horse. He goes to the sheriff’s office to claim the bounty on it. The townsfolk don’t want him around because bounty hunters are bad news. Ben Owens (Perkins) has been appointed temporary sheriff by the townsfolk (the last one having been killed) on account nobody else wants the job. Nobody that is, but the town bully Bogardus (Neville Brand) who would use the post as a licence to kill.

Owens is a likeable young man with a rather unconfident manner and a sweetheart who won’t marry him while he’s wearing a star and Bogardus is a distinctly nasty piece of work who has the townsfolk standing behind him because they’re all afraid of him. He is a racist bully and it’s not long before he shoots an Indian in the back claiming it was self-defence. Owens swallows hard and steps forward to do his job but Bogardus resists arrest, prompting Hickman to step forward and lend an experienced hand.

Hickman has to stick around a day or two while his bounty claim is processed and gets lodgings with widow Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer), a young woman who lives just outside of town with her son, a half-Indian boy named Kip (Michael Ray). Strong feelings rapidly develop between Morgan and Nona and Kip is thrilled to have a father figure around.

With Bogardus released from jail after witnesses claim he did indeed act in self-defence, the young sheriff asks Hickman for some coaching on how to become a better sheriff. Hickman, at first reluctant, telling Owens to quit while he still can and go marry his girl, has a change of heart when he admits to having once been a lawman himself before turning bounty hunter. For all his naivety, Owens is a decent, upstanding man but simply lacks the basic knowledge of being a lawman. He has the heart but not the tools. So Hickman begins to advise the younger man.

Later, the town doctor is murdered by two brothers and the town demands justice. Owens is adamant he wants to bring the perpetrators back alive so they can face a fair trial but Hickman is certain that filling them with lead is the only way the brothers will allow themselves to be brought in. Bogardus takes off with a large posse to capture them, his intention to string them up from the nearest tree.

With Hickman’s help, the brothers are taken alive by the sheriff and thrown in jail. But the rowdy posse – headed by Bogardus – threatens to storm the jail and hang the brothers in the street. Owens, having learned much from Hickman in the last few days, faces the crowd and Bogardus and soon earns the respect of the town. He is now the competent lawman he wanted to be. The film ends on a happy note with Hickman riding out of town to start afresh somewhere else a changed man, with a new woman and a young boy beside him.

Overall this is a very good film and an often overlooked western gem. The acting is terrific from a strong cast, particularly from the two leads. Fonda, who in my opinion, is always worth his fee, plays the jaded hero figure with just the right blend of cruelness and compassion. Sure, he’s as mean as hell, he’s got to be, it’s a tough job and someone has to do it. Perkins, who was only twenty five and in one of his first roles portrays being wet behind the ears at the outset with real honesty but by the end of the film, he’s grown in stature and maturity. A great performance from him.

The screenplay written by Dudley Nichols from a story by Joel Kane and Barney Slater was nominated for an Academy Award, something that very rarely happened to low budget westerns at the time (or ever). There are words of wisdom in Hickman’s dialogue as he tries to instruct Owens in the art of staying alive and in return for this, by collaborating with the younger, idealistic man, Hickman manages to re-find the virtues that he lost years ago through personal tragedy. The movie deals with racism, friendship, romance and the ways of the old west in an intelligent and subtle way that few of the genre ever did and whether you like ‘cowboy’ films or not, the penmanship is such that it’s simply a great story well told. Definitely worth seeing.

Film Review: It Happened One Night

Since Hollywood began handing out gold plated statues in 1929 for the recognition of excellence in the movie industry, only three films have ever won all five major awards – the Oscar Grand Slam – Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. The most recent was in 1992 when The Silence of the Lambs swept the board and Hannibal Lecter declared to the world his penchant for fava beans and a nice chianti. Prior to that it was Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976. The first time occurred forty one years earlier when It Happened One Night became the movie that helped put the then minor studio of Columbia well and truly on the map.

Frank Capra, a rising star when the silent era morphed into the ‘talkies’ directed It Happened One Night and would later go on to make such Hollywood gems as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). In total, he would win three Oscars out of six nominations for his directing and another three out of seven nominations for Outstanding Production/Best Picture.

Numerous actors were considered for the two leads before Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert signed on. Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were among them but rejected the parts because they didn’t feel the script wasn’t good enough. It’s said that Gable was lent to Columbia by MGM’s boss Louis B. Mayer as some form of punishment for refusing roles at his contracted studio but while this may or may not be true, it does give an air of plausibility to Gable apparently turning up for work on the first day of shooting and grumbling – ‘Let’s get this over with.’

The atmosphere on set was pretty tense as filming got under way but Gable and Capra enjoyed making the movie. However, it is said that Colbert did not. She was the sixth actress to be offered the role and reluctantly accepted the part only after Capra had agreed to double her salary to $50,000 and guarantee that she would have to work no more than four weeks. One might think that would make the pill easy to swallow but she was reportedly difficult on set and whined about something virtually every day. When filming had wrapped, she complained to a friend, “I just finished the picture in the world.”

After opening to luke warm business and indifferent reviews, it gained a secondary movie house release, word of mouth spread and the box office receipts went through the roof. It became Columbia’s biggest hit to date and had an immediate impact on the public. One scene has Gable undressing for bed, taking off his shirt and revealing himself to be bare-chested. This was because removing his undershirt as well didn’t fit in with his humorous dialogue and so the undershirt was abandoned altogether. It apparently lead to a noticeable decline in the sales of men’s undershirts. Also because the two characters travel on a Greyhound bus for a significant part of the film, the public’s interest in bus travel increased nationwide.

Although the plot may be well-known to our modern audiences, at the time it was a story largely untapped. Spoiled heiress (Colbert) runs away from home because her father has forbidden her to marry a man he doesn’t like. She boards a bus to New York City to reunite with her husband-to-be and runs into a struggling newspaper reporter (Gable), fellow passenger and all-round charming rogue. She’s soon without the means to get to her desired destination and so he (recognising who she is) offers to help in exchange for her story. She agrees out of necessity and they form a squabbling, travelling alliance. Their adventures together leads them to fall in love but in the finest tradition of great storytelling, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound.

There’s great humour throughout this wonderful film and both leads play their parts superbly (regardless of how they felt). The scene where they first meet aboard the bus sets the standard but a hitch-hiking scene later on is possibly the highlight. Gable’s assurance that he’s an expert in thumbing a lift and Colbert’s subsequent belittling him is an absolute joy to watch. Gable’s nibbling on a carrot while rapidly talking at the beginning of this sequence is rumoured to have influenced the creation of Bugs Bunny too. The subtleties of Gable’s performance is a perfect blend of rapidly delivered wisecracking dialogue and moments of romantic tenderness but he never loses that hard-as-nails streak of downright manliness that personified him throughout his career and helped cement his status as The King of Hollywood. When he tells you to “Beat it!”, you really don’t want to hang around to find out what’ll happen if you don’t. Likewise, Colbert’s portrayal of the spoiled brat who suddenly finds herself roughing it outside of the pampered world she’s only ever known is a marvel. It’s no wonder she would soon become the highest paid actress in Hollywood and I’m sure as the box office receipts piled up, Capra would have admitted she’d been worth her hefty fee.

In 1993, It Happened One Night was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” I think the word ‘significant’ is a good one to wrap this review up with. It is a significant film and a sublime example of a romantic comedy of its time. In cinema terms, it also epitomises the word ‘classic’.

The Killers – Film Review

The more I delve through the cinematic archives, the clearer it becomes that the 1940s was the decade for film noir. Like Double Indemnity two years earlier, The Killers, made in 1946, is a terrific example of the genre. Once again, I watched this classic for the first time a couple of days ago and am amazed that I’d never seen it before. I make it no secret that I’ve always been a great fan of the genre.

The Killers is the title of a short story by Ernest Hemingway and the first twelve minutes of the film which sees a pair of hit men enter a diner one evening in their search for and ambush of “Swede” Andreson is a faithful adaptation of his writing. Played by William Conrad (later of TV’s Cannon and Jake and the Fatman fame) and Charles McGraw, the two assassins open the movie with an incredible sense of menace and deadly intent. The dialogue is sharp and typical of tough guys of the era and you are immediately gripped by the tension and sense of foreboding.

Their mission is to kill Swede (Burt Lancaster) who they know comes in every evening at around 6pm for his dinner but tonight he’s late and the diner’s owner manages to convince the gun men that he won’t be coming in so late. So they leave the diner and head for Swede’s apartment. Swede’s co-worker, who was in the diner when the killers arrived, bolts out the back way and warns Swede that the men are coming for him but Swede, laying on his bed in a cold sweat of resignation, makes no attempt to escape. The killers break in his door and gun him down. Brilliant, brilliant opening.

The rest of the film (an original screenplay co-written by an uncredited John Huston) follows life insurance investigator Jim Reardon (the always excellent Edmond O’Brien) who has been assigned to locate and pay the beneficiary of Swede’s policy. As he tracks down and interviews the dead man’s friends and associates and slowly pieces together the puzzle of Swede’s life, we learn through well-constructed flashbacks that the Swede was involved in a $250,000 heist and then how he came to meet his demise the way he did.

Being a noir, the film obviously has a big cheese bad guy and a delicious femme fatale and Albert Dekker and Ava Gardner fill these roles superbly, respectively of course. Indeed, the entire cast is well put together and Lancaster, 33 years old and in his screen debut, plays his role of a pro boxer washed up through injury then falling for a mobster’s girl and mixing with the wrong crowd admirably. He has a likability and the unmistakable presence that would quickly make him a star.

The black and white cinematography, so often a defining trademark of the noir genre, doesn’t disappoint here. There are many moments of beauty where starkness, shadow and silhouette take turns to create mood and enhance the atmosphere. Sometimes it’s worth watching these films just to see what the director is doing and in this case, Robert Siodmark, a pupil of the highly influential school of German Expressionism really knew his beans. The lighting inside Swede’s apartment when Reardon encounters “Dum Dum” looking for the loot and then later inside the Green Cat night club towards the end of the film are just perfect. Check it out and see what I mean.

All in all, a great film and a great noir. The use of flashback gives it a different feel to the usual main character narrative but it takes nothing away. Full of colourful, untrustworthy characters and intrigue, it’s definitely another one worth watching.