Four Favorite Noirs: Born to Kill (1947), The Dark Corner (1946), Marlowe (1969), and Too Late for Tears (1949)

To celebrate National Classic Movie Day on May 16, Rick at Classic Film & TV Café is hosting the Four Favorite Noirs Blogathon. What a great idea! My only qualm: How am I going to pick only four!

I managed to whittle my list down, as requested, but it was tough. And I cheated a little by including a neo-noir. I decided to write about four little-known noirs because I think they deserve to be seen at least once. If you want to see them again and again, like I do, so much the better!

◊ Born to Kill (1947), starring Claire Trevor and Lawrence Tierney

Born to Kill is a gritty look at two people who are a match made in hell. Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) and Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) are attracted to one another for all the wrong reasons. Both of them are turned on by violence and death, and their story doesn’t end well for either one of them (but you already know that because this is film noir). Born to Kill is a perfect example of a noir that shows you what you shouldn’t be doing if you want to avoid the dreadful consequences of a life of crime—that is, in case you are toying with the idea of a life of crime! Tierney and Trevor are fantastic in their lead roles. And many of the supporting actors, some of the great character actors of film noir—Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook Jr., Esther Howard—are, too.

I watched Born to Kill on DVD, with commentary by noir expert Eddie Muller. Muller’s commentary is packed with information about the film, the director, and the actors. In fact, the commentary includes some recorded material from director Robert Wise, and Muller recounts some of his personal experiences meeting Lawrence Tierney, which adds to the fun. RKO produced Born to Kill as an A picture, a vehicle to make Tierney a leading man and star. But Tierney’s own proclivities toward violence off-screen helped sabotage that plan. If you watch Born to Kill on DVD, I highly recommend Muller’s commentary, too.

◊ The Dark Corner (1946), starring Mark Stevens and Lucille Ball

• Brad Galt: “There goes my last lead. I feel all dead inside. I’m backed up in a dark corner, and I don’t know who’s hitting me.”

The Dark Corner is one of those films I can watch again and again and never tire of it. The witty dialogue is one of the things I like best about the film. The repartee between Kathleen Stuart (Lucille Ball) and Brad Galt (Mark Stevens) is so much fun. And their on-screen chemistry works, too, which is amazing when you consider that Lucille Ball was going through a rough patch in her marriage to Desi Arnaz and that she hated working on this film. Somehow Lucille Ball and her costars make it work, and I found myself rooting for Kathleen and Brad to succeed every step of the way.

Lucille Ball is given top billing, but her costar, Mark Stevens is fourth in the list. Two great noir actors come second and third: Clifton Webb (who plays Hardy Cathcart) and William Bendix (who plays White Suit). Their performances add so much to a great film. Clifton Webb has some dry lines and observations that add an appropriately cynical touch, and he can exude menace when he needs to. William Bendix is the hired thug who knows what he’s doing—until he is outwitted, that is, by . . . well, no spoilers this time because this is a good one.

◊ Marlowe (1969), starring James Garner and Rita Moreno

Forget about Humphrey Bogart! Forget about Dick Powell! Don’t get me wrong: I happen to like both of them as Philip Marlowe, but Marlowe has James Garner. And he gives one of the best portrayals of Philip Marlowe. Yes, he is that Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s famous detective. Another huge plus is Rita Moreno, who costars as Dolores Gonzáles. Moreno, in addition to having a well-deserved “moment” in 2022, is fantastic in Marlowe. Is Gonzáles really a good friend to Mavis Wald, or is she the femme fatale in this story? She keeps everyone, including Marlowe, guessing.

The film is adapted by Stirling Sillphant from Chandler’s novel The Little Sister. The film takes place in 1969, but the story is updated to fit the times while managing to stay true to the novel. For instance, the film opens with Marlowe driving up to a ramshackle beach hotel called The Infinite Pad. People in hippie-style clothing lounge about on the front stairs and porch. And Marlowe shows up in his suit jacket and tie, trying to find the lost brother of his client, one Orfamay Quest. Philip Marlowe is a throwback to the past, a relic of pulp novels from the 1930s and 1940s, but Silliphant’s screenplay and James Garner’s portrayal make Philip Marlowe relevant still in 1969 and so much fun to watch in 2022.

◊ Too Late for Tears (1949), starring Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea

In France, Too Late for Tears is called La tigresse, the perfect name for Lizabeth Scott’s character Jane Palmer. It’s the French translation of Danny Fuller’s (Dan Duryea) nickname for Jane. The minute Jane gets behind the wheel of the car at the start of the film, orders her husband Alan to get in, and drives off with a bag of stolen money thrown into their backseat, you know you are in the noir universe. Jane wants her slice of the American dream, and she doesn’t care who she has to cut out of the picture to get it. Only one man can match her scheme for scheme.

Too Late for Tears holds a special place in my heart because I could swear that I saw it as a child on television. It was Don DeFore who made me wonder. If you are used to seeing him in the television sitcom Hazel or other film comedies, you’re in for a real treat. His performance as Don Blake is certainly memorable. And that’s quite an achievement in a film with two noir greats in Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea.

This article about Born to Kill, The Dark Corner, Marlowe, and Too Late for Tears is my entry for the Four Favorite Noirs Blogathon, which is presented by Rick at Classic Film & TV Café to celebrate National Classic Movie Day on May 16. Click here for the complete list of blogathon participants and links to their blogs. The list will be updated throughout the day.

Crossroads (1942)

I was already intrigued by Crossroads when I first heard about it. When I heard that Claire Trevor had a supporting role in the film, my interest increased dramatically. Trevor is a fixture in the film noir universe: She is fantastic, for just one example, in Born to Kill. I thought she outshone William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, and Basil Rathbone in Crossroads, not a mean feat because they’re great in the film, too. And the story didn’t disappoint either. It has the right mix of suspense, suspicion, and, yes, humor, too.

(This article about Crossroads contains spoilers.)

David Talbot (played by William Powell) is a French diplomat in Paris, where he lives with his new bride of three months, Lucienne (Hedy Lamarr). He gets a threatening letter at home that begins “Dear Jean.” The envelope is addressed to him, but he doesn’t know anyone by the name of Jean, and he doesn’t know how he received the letter. The letter demands that Jean pay 1 million francs and that he throw the package of money over the wall of a deserted farm. Very odd indeed.

Talbot delivers a package and follows the instructions in the letter, including throwing the package over the wall of the deserted farm named in the letter. Carlos Le Duc picks up the package, but it’s a trap and he is captured by gendarmes. At trial, Le Duc is accused of extortion, but his defense is that Talbot is Jean Pelletier, and Jean Pelletier owes him 1 million francs. David Talbot doesn’t know what Le Duc is talking about and says so at Le Duc’s trial. Talbot also maintains that Le Duc’s accusations force him to defend himself in a trial in which he is not the named defendant.

The court case becomes sensationalized because David Talbot is a foreign service officer, a diplomat for the French government. He is also responsible for dispensing anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million francs to pay for the expenses of his office. Thus, he is responsible for large sums of money that have no written transactions or records because of the secretive and confidential nature of diplomacy—a perfect lure for anyone interested in blackmail.

Dr. Andre Tessier, David Talbot’s doctor, testifies that David suffered a head injury in a 1922 train accident. He suffered and still suffers from amnesia: David Talbot remembers nothing prior to the accident in 1922. Dr. Alex Dubroc, also testifying at the trial, states that no one knows what memory is. Dr. Tessier than says that amnesia, which Dr. Dubroc defined as a loss of memory, also cannot really be defined because it is a loss of something that science cannot define. Dr. Dubroc states that amnesia thus cannot be diagnosed if no one knows what memory and amnesia are, thus poking a big hole in David Talbot’s story.

I found this discussion between the two doctors interesting because a lot has changed since 1942 when it comes to the study of memory. Amnesia is a common plot device in film noir. Many noir protagonists suffer some sort of head trauma and wake up to find themselves in a hospital bed with a fuzzy memory or no memory at all. It might sound like a cliché today, but amnesia, memory, hypnosis, and so on, were new topics for classic film and film noir audiences.

Michelle Allaine (Claire Trevor) is another witness who testifies at the trial. She is currently a singer at the Club La Sirene in Paris, but she was living in Marseilles in 1922 when she was in love with Jean Pelletier. She says at first that she doesn’t recognize David Talbot, but then says that she does and that he is Jean. Although it isn’t obvious at the trial, Allaine is working with Henri Sarrou on an elaborate blackmail scheme involving David Talbot. Sarrou testifies that Jean Pelletier died in Marseilles, and that the man (David Talbot) in the courtroom cannot possibly Jean Pelletier.

Most of the people around David Talbot believe that he is, indeed, David Talbot. His wife Lucienne; his doctor, Dr. Andre Tessier; and his boss, foreign service minister Deval have the utmost faith in him. But David begins to doubt himself. He doesn’t remember anything before March 27, 1922, the night of the train accident when he suffered a head injury. He has to rely on others for the details of his life before then, and he slowly starts to let mistrust poison his present life. David Talbot has to prove to himself that he is who he says, who others say, he is.

After the trial, Sarrou shows up, uninvited, right before a party hosted by the Talbots. He is friendly at first, but when he is alone with Talbot, he threatens him and demands 1 million francs. He maintains that he and David stole 2 million francs from a bank messenger in Marseilles, that David killed the man during the robbery, and that David owes him half the take. This time, David doesn’t call the police, but in the following day or two, he worries and other notice that he is not himself.

Michelle Allaine visits David Talbot at his embassy office. She has a locket with a picture of the two of them in it. She offers the picture as proof that she knew David Talbot as Jean Pelletier, but David Talbot makes no such admission, and Michelle Allaine leaves with her locket. David knew says at the end of the film that he knew the moment he saw the picture that Michelle Allaine and Henri Sarrou were lying.

Crossroads is one of those films that keeps viewers guessing until the very end because they think they know more than the main characters when they don’t. And I especially appreciated the explanation at the end, when one character delivers all the answers. This time, the explanation was easy to follow, not like some noir and detective films where the main character explains everything, but viewers never had a chance to solve the mystery themselves because most of the mystery isn’t shown on the screen.

The one complaint I have is really a very minor one. I very much enjoyed William Powell and Hedy Lamarr in their leading roles. They make a congenial couple, and their relationship is easy to believe. The film actually starts with Lucienne in the audience for a lecture delivered by her husband David to other foreign service officers. It isn’t clear that they even know each other, and the scene is played for some humor when she tries to bait him with questions after his talk. It all works very amiably.

But I couldn’t help noticing the age difference between the two of them, even in black and white. William Powell was about to turn fifty years old when the film was released; Hedy Lamarr was not yet twenty-eight. I noticed their age difference every time they were on-screen, in spite of the fact that the two actors portrayed some chemistry. It was a bit of a distraction for me that might not matter to other viewers. But there it is: I noticed their age difference several times, no matter how much on-screen chemistry the actors portrayed.

The real star is Claire Trevor. Her character, Michelle Allaine, goes from adoring girlfriend at the trial and then, in David Talbot’s embassy office, to shocked and hurt ex-girlfriend when David insists the he has never seen her before. Then she becomes Sarrou’s willing accomplice, and she is now in her element. She maintains her cool composure, even when Sarrou starts to have doubts that they will be able to pull off their scheme. At the end of the film, when she is being hauled off to jail, Sarrou blames her for being hysterical and giving away everything. Michelle Allaine hasn’t lost her sense of self-preservation, however; she tells Sarrou that he should wait and see how she screams at the trial.

Yes, I think Michelle Allaine/Claire Trevor will end up just fine!

July 23, 1942, release date  •  Directed by Jack Conway  •  Screenplay by Guy Trosper, John H. Kafka, Howard Emmett Rogers  •  Based on the screenplay of the 1938 French film Crossroads  •  Music by Bronislau Kaper  •  Edited by George Boemler  •  Cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg

William Powell as David Talbot  •  Hedy Lamarr as Lucienne Talbot  •  Claire Trevor as Michelle Allaine  •  Basil Rathbone as Henri Sarrou  •  Vladimir Sokoloff as Carlos Le Duc  •  Margaret Wycherly as Madame Pelletier  •  Felix Bressart as Dr. Andre Tessier  •  Sig Ruman as Dr. Alex Dubroc  •  H. B. Warner as the prosecuting attorney  •  Philip Merivale as the commissaire  •  Bertram Marburgh as Pierre, the Talbot’s butler  •  Fritz Leiber as French foreign minister Deval  •  James Rennie as Charles Martin

Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer  •  Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer