Monthly Archives: November 2016

Noirvember – Out of the Darkness…(It’s Over and I Messed Up)

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It’s 30 November, the last day of November – and Noirvember – and it’s safe to say that I messed up. I overestimated this self-imposed task to post something everyday and follow Noirvember to the letter. I did not anticipate the sheer volume activity that would flood my way and make this month one of my busiest of the year.

It’s started slowly and surely, but a combination of minor health niggles and research activity soon put my intentions to rest. May it was this task – the incentive to become more active on here – that kickstarted my hunger for something that I’ve been missing and craving for a very long time. It got me back into a much-missed circle, asking questions of myself and critiquing my current situation and general career plan. It gave me a much-needed kick to use my site more and to post whatever I wanted to at that particular moment, be it a photo, quote, anecdote or whatever. I wanted to do more in-depth reviews, analysis and wittily constructed posts but there’s always time – maybe I’ll do a mini Noir celebration in the year?

Let’s just see where this site takes us, shall we? Out of the Noirvember darkness and into the light…

Noirvember – Day 20 (Running)

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My first viewing of He Ran All The Way was at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival. What follows is an extract of my original post:

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He Ran All The Way was hardly a second choice and did not disappoint. A gritty, menacing Noir, we were soon being terrorised by a crooked John Garfield brandishing a gun, then a large piece of poultry, into the faces of Shelley Winter’s terrified family. Furthermore, I was in awe of Galdys George’s wardrobe and her superb, very minor, role as Garfield’s mother who smoked, drank and bitched her way through barely two scenes.

The sense of bleakness within He Ran All the Way is also palpable off screen. The Blacklist haunts the film – its screenplay was co-written by Dalton Trumbo and Garfield was blacklisted two months before the film’s release. It was also to be Garfield final film – he died one year later. Denis Berry, whose father John Berry (who was blacklisted after Edward Dmytruk named him as one of the Hollywood ten) directed the film, gave an affecting, personal introduction of life during this era. We can read about the time and see movies written, during and about this historical Hollywood period, but it is only when you hear it directly from someone who experienced and lived through it all that the reality truly hits home.

Noirvember – Day 16 (Forever Words)

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Johnny Cash’s music is ideal for Noirvember. With his dark, melancholic lyrics conjuring up imagery in the imagination, he was both haunter and haunted; his songs inhabiting our thoughts with a brooding poetry. Yet there is also something about Cash’s voice that gives hope and optimism, that raises a smile and is filled with lyrical love stories. You can never ‘just listen’ to a Cash song – pop him on in the background as you would a radio. He demands your complete attention (which makes him extremely difficult to listen while working).

Johnny Cash’s voice can be heard loud and clear from every page of ‘Forever Words: The Unknown Poems’, the new volume of his previously unpublished poetry. Cash’s handwritten notes – sometimes neat, sometimes scribbled on bits of paper – all provide a greater touch of the personal. The two introductions offer various insights. While John Carter Cash (son of Johnny Cash and June Carter) adds deeper familiarity and affection to his father’s poetry, Paul Muldoon (Pulitzer Prize winning poet) unpacks and delves deeper into Cash’s words.

With annotated musings, photographs, and scribbles punctuating various pages, the book reflects Cash’s storytelling lyricism filled with every emotion from love to hope and dread. These poems offer glimpses into the construction of his songs, lines later adapted into his most cherished lyrics, and that unmistakable darkness of which he became synonymous. If Cash’s songs are personal insights then this book feels like a conversation.

Some are self-deprecating and humorous – especially ‘Don’t Make a Movie About Me’, written at Christmas 1982 which forms a nice alignment to 2005’s Walk The Line, especially as Cash approved Joaquin Phoenix for the role. Some may say he was a mass of contradictions but these all fit together beautifully: a scholar and learned in ancient texts, a brilliant theologian and ordained minister, well-read and a poet, a tortured rebel whose life was filled with sadness and tragedy.

Despite his tremendous life ‘Forever Words’ is not a big book. It is not the most ostentatious. Like Cash it is unadorned yet deep, intense but sensitive, soft despite appearances, and, naturally, it is wearing black.

 

*Johnny Cash, ‘Forever Words: The Unknown Poems’ is available now from Canongate.
ISBN, 978-1-78211-994-4

 

 

 

 

Noirvember – Day 12 (Beat the Devil, 1953)

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John Huston’s Beat the Devil is not easy to categorise. Part comedy, tongue-in-cheek, and rarely dramatic, Bogart described the film as “a sort of satire on the Maltese Falcon private detective,” while for John Huston it was “more a lark than a satirical story…It made no points about anything in particular, we just had a good time”. ‘We’ being the film’s star-studded cast including Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Jennifer Jones and Peter Lorre.

While waiting in an Italian port to board a boat for Mombasa, a group of completely random people – two couples, a shifty-looking International trio and various other oddballs – connive to claim land rich in uranium. The plot is light, but the sartorial stakes are extremely high. It is impossible to deny that Lollobrigida oozes glamour as Maria (the wife of Bogart’s character), who never breaks a sweat and maintains effortless chic throughout the film. Whatever the situation she can be trusted to be seen in tight dresses, heels and perfectly un-smudged eyeliner. She also has some very funny moments, especially when she describes herself as an honorary Brit who maintains her subscription to Town & Country Magazine and has an afternoon tea ritual. She naturally falls for the English charms of Harry Chelm (played by the very British named Edward Underdone).

Although not quite as glamourous as Lollobrigida, Jones, in her oversized shirts and headscarves, adds to the continental allure. She raises a laugh when, in a cut-glass British accent, says she doesn’t trust the men because “not one of them looked at my legs”. Unfortunately for her, her hypochondriac husband constantly moans about “a chill on his liver”, has an unhealthy attachment to his hot water bottle, and (embodying the stereotypical Brit abroad) constantly moans about the unpalatable Italian food. You can understand why she falls for Bogart’s charms, dapperly dressed in a wonderful range of cravats and bow ties. Lorre too is rather chic as Julius O’Hara – “there are a lot of O’Haras in Chile” – who elegantly puffs away on a long white cigarette holder that matches his suit.

Convoluted, fast, funny and full of famous faces. There is little to not like about Beat The Devil. For serious noir watch The Maltese Falcon. If you like your noirs a little lighter, this can’t be beaten.

 

*This is a modified, slightly tidier version of a post that appeared on my old website (silverembers.com) on 6 October 2014. I don’t use that site anymore, so please continue to follow me here instead! Thank you.