Christa Faust's Blog, page 10

Brute Force and House of Numbers

Last night's Los Angeles Film Noir Festival program featured a prison break double bill. First up, one of the best prison break movies of all time, BRUTE FORCE.



I absolutely love this movie, one of the few out of this year's line up that I've already seen. However, I have to agree with director Jules Dassin who, according to host Eddie Muller, was unhappy with the addition of the girlfriend-related flashbacks. Not that I'm ever disappointed to see gorgeous Ella Raines or Yvonne DeCarlo on screen, but those sequences do seem unnecessary, obviously tacked on to dilute the overflowing testosterone. Maybe it would be a better movie without the dames, but it's still brilliant. Hume Cronyn is superb as the sadistic chief of security. His performance is both chilling and utterly believable, delivered without whiff of melodrama. The cast is stacked to the rafters with every old-school tough guy in Hollywood, plus there's both a Creature from the Black Lagoon connection (Whit Bissell) and an Outer Limits connection (Jeff Corey) so that makes me a happy geekgirl. Not to mention, as my pal Keith Rainville says, this film contains the single finest plancha onto a machine gun nest in film history. This one is available on DVD, so you can play along at home with your own private Film Noir Festival. Highly recommended.

Next up HOUSE OF NUMBERS



After the bizzaro third-world poster art from the previous night, this is much more like it. Love the question mark motif. But what this poster doesn't tell you is that you're in for DOUBLE JACK! That's right, double your pleasure with double Jack Pallance. No, this isn't just a glimpse into my perverse sex fantasies, Pallance actually plays a double role as look-a-like brothers in this strange and not entirely successful prison break flick.

Good Pallance is shacking up with the hot blonde wife of San Quentin inmate Bad Pallance while they pull off what has to be one of the most complicated and convoluted prison breaks of all time. I won't spoil all the details, but it involves Good Pallance breaking IN to prison and impersonating his brother. Of course he falls for his brother's wife along the way and things get ugly. But what did you expect in Noir City?

This was a vintage print and a little soft at times, but not unwatchably so. My big beef with this picture was the abrupt, unsatisfying ending. It's like the writers spent so much effort on the plans for the prison break, that they had no creative energy left to figure out what would happen after the break was over. Still, I can't get enough of Jack Pallance and it was worth it for the composite shot where Bad Pallance threatens to strangle Good Pallance. I can't exactly recommend this one, but I enjoyed it.

Up next, WHIPLASH and THE HUNTED.

High Wall and Strangers in the Night

First night of the Los Angeles Film Noir Festival is always a blast. It's great to see all the usual suspects and fellow die hard Noir junkies.

Now, the movies:

First up, Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter in THE INCREDIBLE TWO HEADED TRANSPLANT!



 

Okay, maybe not. But, man, is that some weird poster art or what? Anyway, HIGH WALL is about a surly pilot (Taylor) who sustained a head injury in the war, suffers from amnesia, and may or may not have killed his wife. He gets sent to the nuthouse for evaluation, where he meets saucy doctor Audrey Totter. I won't give away all the twists here, but it's quite a wild ride.

Not a great film overall, but HIGH WALL has some great moments. Like that genuinely creepy scene where we see the pilot drive off a bridge with his dead wife in the passenger seat. And, while I'm not a big fan of Taylor, I kind of liked that he was so relentlessly unlikable in this picture. Don't know if it was intentional or not, but you really got the feeling that this was a genuinely bad guy who just happened to be innocent. This time, anyway. Also, I love Audrey Totter. She's a real contradiction, simultaneously tough and vulnerable. Sexy and stone cold. I'd pretty much watch her in anything.

It almost seems like there's a whole sub-genre of post war Noir that involves a guy coming home from overseas to find that the world he knew has gone on without him. THE BLUE DAHLIA and ACT OF VIOLENCE are two better known examples but this film fits right along side them. Clearly this was a very powerful theme that really resonated with so many American men of that era.

And then there's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT



HIGH WALL is a man's movie. This one is all about the women. Pure post-menopausal melodrama. It's astounding to think that this curiosity was directed by Anthony Mann, who would later be responsible for Film Noir classics like RAILROADED! and RAW DEAL, as well as some fantastic, noirish Westerns like WINCHESTER '73. In this film, an injured soldier (William Terry) comes home to meet his female pen-pal face to face for the first time. On the train to her house, he has a chance encounter with a hot lady doctor (Virginia Grey.) Sparks fly, but he feels he owes his heart to the pen-pal who saved his sanity during the war with her supportive love letters. When he arrives at the house, the pen-pal is "out of town" and her clearly bat-shit crazy mom, played by the mesmerizingly creepy Helene Thimig, invites him to stay until she gets back. Things swiftly go from bizarre to off-the-hook.

This movie is a rickety old spook-house ride to Looney Town, melodrama on top of melodrama, but I loved every twisted minute of it. It's rare to see a Noir flick in which the women are the main characters. The man is little more than a pretty trophy to be fought over by the smart, strong-willed females. Even the secondary female characters like the neurotic maid and the wisecracking nurse, are much more complex and interesting than the central stud.

I have to say that I was deeply terrified of Helene Thimig's teeth, made even scarier on the big screen. But her big speech at the end, where she tries to justify her murderous madness, is weirdly sad and poignant. This is one that I was really jazzed about, and it was just as weird and wonderful as I'd hoped. The ending is goofy as hell, but I don't care. I really enjoyed it.

One more thing. Not to go off on yet another crankypants rant about these young kids today, but is it really necessary to guffaw like howler monkeys at every other line? I'm not saying that every old movie is sacred and laughing at some of the campier moments is sacrilegious. Hell, I'll bust out a giggle every now and then myself. Plus there are a lot of Noir movies that have humorous or witty dialog that was actually meant to be funny. But this year it seems like the ironic laughter has gotten louder and more grating that ever. Example, the whole house cracked up when the maid put a letter in a mailbox. They laugh during fist fights or train crashes. They laughed every time someone said the phrase "homicidal maniac." Every. Single. Time. It's as if people have no idea how to deal with "old" stuff other than to make fun of it.

Still, a full house is never a bad thing and hipster money restores lost Film Noir just as well as mine.

Tonight it's BRUTE FORCE and HOUSE OF NUMBERS.

The Big Kick Off

Tonight the 13th annual LA Film Noir festival kicks off with High Wall and Strangers in the Night. I'll be there tonight and every night, reporting from ringside, so tune in to this blog for your daily Film Noir fix.

Noir City Hollywood

That's right, kids, it's that time of year again. Time for the 13th Annual Film Noir Festival.



Once again, your intrepid girl reporter will be on the scene, giving you the nightly play by play. The line up looks amazing, the majority of the titles not available on DVD. So if you can't make it in person, be sure to tune in to this blog for the next best thing. See you in Noir City.

RIP Zola

Sad news today. Zola, the world's best bookstore cat, lost her battle against the mystery illness that was causing her lungs to fill with fluid.



Zola was rescued from the same horrific hoarding situation as my Persian cat Reggie, and I fostered her for a few weeks before she found her forever home at the Iliad bookstore. This one-eyed pirate kitty was a unique and unforgettable feline, who never held her past abuse and neglect against the new humans she met.

Her coworkers Lisa and Ricky went above and beyond to try and save her, putting themselves in deep debt to pay for expensive surgery they had hoped would save her life. Zola is gone now but unfortunately the bills are still here. I know it doesn't sound as urgent or sentimental as donating money to save her, but please consider making a donation to the Zola fund, to help the heartbroken humans that Zola left behind.

Click the paypal button below to donate.

A Quick NoirDog Update

Butch is still on the prednisone and his eyes are a little more bulgy than normal, one slightly more so than the other, but he is otherwise stable and hanging in there. He has a recheck with the neurologist at the end of this month.



Thanks again to everyone who pitched in to help with his vet bills.

Jeepers, the Cops!

Random poll:

When you see a police prowler coming down the street in your direction, do you

a) feel relieved and safe?

or

b) feel anxious, even if you aren't doing anything illegal?

(If you are actually doing something illegal, you are exempt from this poll.)

For me, it's always choice b. I haven't done anything illegal (except for occasional jaywalking) in 20 years, but my history of teenage misadventures on the wrong side of the law has left me with an irrational distrust and fear of cops that I still can't shake to this day.

How about you?

Twist Ending

According to this blogger, the novelization for the new movie Red Riding Hood leaves out the ending and asks readers to visit a website after the film's release to download the final pages.

I can't help but wonder if this is a deliberate publicity stunt to sell movie tickets (as the blogger implies,) a failed experiment in mixing traditional with digital publishing, or maybe the film was being re-cut up until the very last days before release and rather than releasing a book with a totally different ending (like my Final Destination 3 novelization) and they chose this method to cope with the changes.

For those who don't know, a novelization isn't based on a finished movie. It's based on whatever draft of the script is available before the writer's deadline. That deadline is often before a single frame of film has been shot, or sometimes before it's even been cast. The book needs to come out at the same time as the movie and because traditional publishing has such a long lag between when the writer turns in their MS and when the book is available in stores, it's not uncommon for novelizations to feature cut scenes and different endings. In fact, I think that's part of the appeal for readers, kind of like viewing an alternate cut of a favorite film. Even if it's not "as good" as the film, it can still provide an interesting peek at the creative process.

Anybody know the authors or the publisher of the Red Riding Hood novelization? Anyone have the inside scoop on what's really going on here? Curious...

Also I have to add that as an author, I really feel for those two writers, who now have their sacred, all important Amazon cool-o-meter permanently soiled by a hundred angry one star reviews. Clearly it wasn't the writers' choice to leave off the ending. But all those bad reviews don't count against the publisher or movie studio or whatever exec actually made that decision, they count directly against the writers. Which once again makes me want to shake my fist at the whole concept of the Amazon rating system. But that's a whole other post.

Forever Noir

Never mind what's written on those awful, inedible candy hearts. Any Film Noir fan knows that love doesn't last forever. It lasts only as long as it takes to get the money, to get into her panties or to get him to kill your husband.

Well, film doesn't last forever either. Unlike a coded digital signal, film is a real, physical thing that degrades, rots, crumbles and dies. Without the tireless dedication of guys like Eddie Muller and Alan Rode and all the other hardcore Noir lovers of the Film Noir Foundation, so many great films would have been lost forever.

I love the fact that Film Noir Foundation doesn't just care about the famous titles. They go to bat for the little guy, the obscure stuff, the forgotten titles that aren't available on DVD. Because for every Double Indemnity or Sunset Boulevard, there's a wicked little gem of a film like Crashout, which I never would have seen if it hadn't been screened at the Film Noir Festival at the Egyptian.



Each and every one of these films is a historical document. They aren't just flights of fancy, they're time capsules. Every throw-away street scene, every extra's clothing, every piece of set dressing, they all add up to form a fascinating picture of a bygone era. And seeing these films projected on the big screen, as they were meant to be seen, really makes all those little details shine. Yet another reason why it's so important to preserve these films in 35 mm format. Because watching it on your phone just isn't the same.

So today, I'm blogging on the importance of preserving lost Film Noir in order to help raise money for this worthy cause. And even though I'm dead broke right now, I'll also be donating. Not a lot, but as much as I can spare, because I love these films. After all, isn't Valentine's Day supposed to be about spending money on the one you love?

What about you? All those wonderful people out there in the dark? Love Film Noir? Love reading my yearly play-by-play of the Film Noir Festival? Time to put your money where your mouth is and cough up a couple clams to help preserve our Film Noir heritage for future generations.

Click here to make a donation.

Literary Islands

I've been thinking a lot about ePublishing / self-publishing and the impact it's having on me both as a writer and a reader. I was suddenly gobsmacked by something that had never occurred to me until just now and I wanted to float it out there and see what other people think.

If "indy" eBooks are the wave of the future, will translation and foreign editions become a thing of the past? Will each country (or each group of people who share a common language) become like a literary island, reading only their own books?

Are there any self-pubbed/ePubbed authors out there currently providing foreign language versions? And if so, how do you market them and reach out to new readers when you don't speak their language? There's been a lot of talk about traditional publishers being essentially useless in this modern a-go-go eWorld we live in, but here's one situation in which an intermediary/middleman is not just useful, but necessary. Kinda like a native guide. Because even if you hired your own translator, you'd also need to hire a dedicated publicist for each language. Or would you?

Foreign sales have been a substantial part of my income over the past few years. I also really enjoy that ability to reach readers that may otherwise never have heard of me. It tickles me to think of people in Finland or Argentina reading my books. I also like reading foreign writers, and hate to think that I'd someday I might lose access to those authors.

Thoughts? I'm particularly interested to hear from Peter Rozovsky on this...