I Wake up Screaming (1941)

November 14, 1941, release date

Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone

Screenplay by Dwight Taylor and Steve Fisher

Based on the novel I Wake up Screaming by Steve Fisher

Music by Cyril J. Mockridge

Edited by Robert L. Simpson

Cinematography by Edward Cronjager

Betty Grable as Jill Lynn

Victor Mature as Frankie Christopher

Carole Landis as Vicky Lynn

Laird Cregar as Ed Cornell

Alan Mowbray as Robin Ray

Allyn Joslyn as Larry Evans

Elisha Cook, Jr., as Harry Williams

Chick Chandler as a reporter

Cyril Ring as a reporter

Morris Ankrum as the assistant district attorney

Charles Lane as the florist

Frank Orth as the cemetery caretaker

Gregory Gaye as the headwaiter

May Beatty as Mrs. Handel

Distributed by 20th Century Fox

I Wake up Screaming is another of my favorite films noir. I have read the book on which the film is based and, as I have already posted, the book and film are a little bit different. Here are a couple of the points I mentioned back in December 2015:

• The narrator in the book is never named except for the nickname Peg (for Pegasus) that Jill gives him. The entire plot in the novel is told from his perspective, in first-person narration. In the film, he is Frankie Christopher.

• The book takes place in the Los Angeles, California, area and also seems to cover many months, from summer through winter the following year. It references Christmas at the appropriate points in the timeline. The film doesn’t mention anything about the holidays or the seasons, and it takes place in New York City.

Some might argue that I Wake up Screaming is not really a film noir but an avant noir (or proto-noir), and I think it’s true that the film could be classified either way. But I lean more toward classifying it as a film noir for several reasons.

(This blog post about the I Wake up Screaming contains spoilers.)

The world of the film is fairly dark. Even though the two main characters Jill Lynn and Frankie Christopher come out of it in love and cleared of murder, they are on their own in a series of harrowing events. Frankie in particular has to prove his own innocence against formidable odds. Here is what I mean about the dark tone of the film:

• Jill’s sister Vicky is dead, and Frankie is accused of the murder by a police detective intent on proving him guilty no matter what.

• The detective Ed Cornell is dead by the end of the film.

• Ed Cornell might not be a sympathetic character; he represents corruption, sexual obsession, stalking.

• I Wake up Screaming was filmed during the Great Depression and several weeks before the U.S. entry into World War II. The overall noir tone reinforces the social context. For example, my favorite scene in the film comes when Jill Lynn and Frankie Christopher have just arrived on the sidewalk outside the Pegasus Club (a club name that I think is a nod to the nickname for the main character in the novel). Frankie meets an ex-boxer, an acquaintance of his, who is not doing so well: He still has “that ringing” in his head. Frankie is sympathetic and gives him some money for “a big dinner.” After the ex-boxer walks off, Jill asks Frankie about him.

• Jill: “He seemed to know you were going to give him that money.”

• Frankie: “Always do. I may be a has-been myself someday.”

It’s a quick moment in the entire film, but I thought the scene was a recognition of hard times in general. This scene, more than any other in the film, showed Frankie’s generosity and caring for other people—and his recognition that poverty and need could happen to him or to anyone else at any moment. (It was also the point at which I was pretty sure Frankie had not killed Vicky, but given the film’s plot, I couldn’t be entirely sure.)

• The shot of Frankie Christopher in shadow on the stairs in the Lynns’ apartment building is meant to show that Frankie is eavesdropping on the murderer and waiting for him to incriminate himself. That’s an important noir detail. Frankie is conducting his own civilian investigation; he is responsible for proving himself innocent because Ed Cornell is stacking the evidence against him out of jealousy.

The cinematography is noir in many respects, and not just in the shot of Frankie in shadow waiting to hear the murderer incriminate himself. At the beginning of the film, both Jill and Frankie are subject to police interrogation. The use of light and shadow shows how each one is hemmed in by the detectives and by the circumstances of Vicky Lynn’s murder. Both could be suspects, but Frankie is chosen for intense police scrutiny because Ed Cornell wants him to take the fall, even though he knows Frankie didn’t kill Vicky. (Viewers learn these details later in the film.) These scenes are shot so that the detectives are in shadow, making them difficult to see and thus increasing the tension for each suspect in their respective interrogations.

At the end of the film, Frankie Christopher goes to Cornell’s apartment to confront him with the facts of the murder that he has uncovered himself. Frankie enters the apartment almost completely in shadow. The scene reminded me of Dana Andrews in Where the Sidewalk Ends, when he enters an apartment to confront a suspect. Andrews is noir-perfect in his fedora and overcoat; Mature is noir-perfect in his hat and in the shadows.

So with all these noir details, it’s easy for me to classify I Wake up Screaming as a film noir more so than an avant noir. Plus it’s just a great story. I read the novel first, and it kept me guessing about the murderer’s identity until the end. The film almost did, too.

Just Another Love Story (2007)

August 24, 2007, release date

Directed by Ole Bornedal

Screenplay by Ole Bornedal

Music by Joachim Holbek

Edited by Anders Villadsen

Cinematography by Dan Laustsen

Anders W. Berthelsen as Jonas

Rebecka Hemse as Julia

Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Sebastian

Charlotte Fich as Mette

Dejan Čukić as Frank

Karsten Jansfort as Poul

Flemming Enevold as Overlæge Dichmann

Bent Mejding as Mr. Castlund

Ewa Fröling as Mrs. Castlund

KOCH Lorber Films, LP

The opening sequence of Just Another Love Story consists of three “love scenes” numbered by the director as “Love scene no. 1,” “Love scene no. 2,” and “Love scene no. 3.” They lay out the intertwining stories to come in the film.

• Love scene no. 1: Jonas: [in voice-over] “Dear Mette, I don’t know where I am going. Only that I’ve got my back against the planet and I’m on my way away.”

• Love scene no. 2: Mette: “Do you know where they [acetaminophen tablets] are?” Jonas: “Yes, near the equator.”

• Love scene no. 3: Sebastian: “Here. [moves gun in Julia’s hand from the side of his head to his heart] Or I won’t be able to see you.”

Right away I wanted to know what would come next in this film. The stories of all the characters are intertwined in ways that are hard to predict from these opening “love scenes,” but because so much of the film is told in flashback, the characters are already known to one another; the viewer is the newcomer, the only one who doesn’t know what comes next in the plot.

After these so-called love scenes, the story returns to Jonas and his marriage. He is rebuffed by his wife after their lovemaking is interrupted by one of their children. His wife and now his daughter find it easy to fall asleep, but Jonas is left with his imagination. In a voice-over, he explains how he finds adventure (and apparently distraction) through reading:

Tibetan monks think that sexual abstinence gives you absolute insight. All I could see was darkness. But from bed height, I could see a long way. My agents reported back on everything. The secretive coasts of Polynesia. The deserts of Arizona. The reefs of the Dead Sea. I was king of the world, and my throne stood far to the north in a tiny country that called itself Denmark. . . .

It is implied in Love scene no. 2 that one of Jonas’s loves is adventure, and this desire for adventure, and the accompanying excitement, is what starts the events in his life that he will find powerless to stop once they are set in motion.

(This blog post about Just Another Love Story contains spoilers.)

Everything about this film was economical. Some of the filming techniques move the plot ahead in ways that make the entire film smooth and tight:

• The opening and closing shots of the main character Jonas in the pouring rain, with Jonas talking in voice-over, were beautiful and moving. As the film progressed from the opening shot, I got so caught up in the story that I forgot that it started with Jonas bleeding out on wet pavement and that most of the film is told in flashback.

• The closing credits over shots from what I think are Vietnam are also amazing. I can’t help thinking that the closing is meant to show Julia filming and then Sebastian doing what he does to destroy anything that Julia wants or does, but that’s my interpretation. The fact that even the shots behind the closing credits are open to interpretation is pretty amazing.

• The use of a process shot during the scene at the car accident shows Jonas in the foreground and Julia, as she looks after her accident, in the background. She will play a large role in Jonas’s life, and Jonas is aware of this fact from this moment in the film onward. He states as much in voice-over, but viewers are unaware just yet of the enormity of his statements.

• In several sequences, scenes and dialogue are spliced together to show Jonas’s confused state of mind. He is married to Mette, but he thinks of Julia almost constantly. In voice-over, he tells the viewer what he is thinking, but then he blurts a thought out loud, and the viewer is reminded (as is Jonas) that he is married and he is in Mette’s company, not Julia’s.

There’s a femme fatale in this film, but she is not a typical femme fatale. Jonas gets swept away, but not because Julia is trying to seduce him. In fact, she’s just been injured in a car crash, and the viewer wonders about Jonas’s good sense from the beginning when he falls in love with her as she lies bleeding in the roadway. Even his friends, Frank and Poul, can’t understand what he’s doing. They know he is married (to Mette), but Julia doesn’t. Jonas misleads Julia, not the other way around.

Just Another Love Story has a strong female lead in Julia. She may ultimately triumph and achieve her goal, but it comes at a heavy price. Everyone, including Julia, suffers. Julia is the one who finally kills Sebastian. She does get away from him, just like she wanted, but she’s carrying his child because Sebastian raped her while she was in a coma. (Dr. Dichmann, who works in the hospital where Julia is recuperating after the car accident, confronts Jonas about it because Jonas is posing as Sebastian, but it is not his child.)

Jonas’s friend Frank poses several matter-of-fact questions about life that Jonas ignores, much to his peril. Here are two examples.

• Jonas is considering visiting Julia in the hospital after the car accident, and right away, Frank thinks he is making a mistake. He wants to know if Jonas thinks she is beautiful. Jonas doesn’t answer this question directly, but Frank persists: “Beautiful woman and a mystery. Isn’t that how all film noirs begin?” It is a warning, but Jonas will not be deterred.

• And then there’s the one Frank poses about love in the autopsy room while he and Jonas are standing next to naked corpses (both work for the local police department). Frank tells Jonas that he thinks Muslims have it right: that sex should be used for procreation; falling in love just makes a person crazy. He delights in reading one of the corpses’ suicide notes because he believes the note sounds banal to everyone else but the writer. It shows how easy it is to lose sight of the big picture when one is carried away by emotion. It’s a great scene that is lost on Jonas.

Frank is probably the best friend Jonas has, but a good friend isn’t enough to stop fate, to stop the events that Jonas has set in motion. And, of course, a protagonist who cannot escape fate is a hallmark of noir. In Just Another Love Story, the events from someone else’s past (that is, Julia’s) has a profound effect on Jonas. He cannot escape Julia’s fate because he willingly embraces it as his own and then cannot do anything about it once events spiral out of everyone’s control.

Just Another Love Story is poetic on so many levels: in the writing, the cinematography, and many of the camera shots. The plot is tight, and the camera and the filming serve the story in delightful and innovative ways. And I’m still thinking about it after seeing it: That’s always a good sign.

It's a Wonderful Life (Part II) (1946)

December 20, 1946, release date

Directed by Frank Capra

Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra

Based on the story “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern

Music by Dimitri Tiomkin

Edited by William Hornbeck

Cinematography by Joseph Walker, Joseph Biroc

Charles Halton as Mr. Carter, bank examiner

J. Farrell MacDonald as the man whose grandfather planted the tree

Harry Holman as Mr. Partridge, college teacher

Carl (Alfalfa) Switzer as Freddie, Mary’s annoying high school suitor

Dick Elliott as the fat man on the porch

Tom Fadden as the bridge caretaker

Stanley Andrews as Mr. Welch, teacher’s husband

Al Bridge as the sheriff with arrest warrant

Ellen Corby as Miss Davis

Max Wagner as the cashier/bouncer at Nick’s Bar

Marian Carr as Jane Wainwright, Sam’s wife

Adriana Caselotti as the singer in Martini’s Bar

Joseph Granby as Angel Joseph

Moroni Olsen as the senior angel

Jimmy the raven as Uncle Billy’s pet raven

This post includes all the uncredited actors in It’s a Wonderful Life. For the main cast members, see my blog post about It’s a Wonderful Life (Part I) dated December 17, 2015.

Produced by Liberty Films

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures

As I explained in my December 17, 2015 post, the plot of It’s a Wonderful Life includes some traumatic and heartbreaking details. The story alone has many noir elements. But other details of the film give it some noir characteristics: flashbacks, unusual narration, dark and moody cinematography that was innovative for the 1940s. These latter noir characteristics are the subject of today’s Part II post.

Almost the entire plot of It’s a Wonderful Life is told in flashbacks, a common narrative technique in film noir. The explanations about George Bailey’s life are related by an angel, Joseph, as a way to educate Clarence about the events leading to George’s predicament. Even the events of Christmas Eve, when Uncle Billy loses the bank deposit that is scooped up by Potter, are told in flashback. George is already heading to the bridge to pray, and many others are praying for him in Bedford Falls, when the movie begins. It’s not until approximately 1:38:35 that we actually see George on the bridge, and his wish is granted at approximately 1:44:17. (The film lasts a total of 2:10:29.)

During these flashbacks, Capra uses choker close-ups several times. The choker close-up is a hallmark of film noir cinematography. It emphasizes how characters feel trapped by fate or circumstances. Here, in a flashback, George learns that the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan will be dissolved unless he takes the reins of the business:

Of course, George takes over the Building and Loan, but that doesn’t mean he is happy with his decision. He is trapped by circumstances: his father’s untimely death and the war and his responsibilities at home. In the following still, during the run on the Building and Loan, George is shown behind the grating over the entrance to the Building and Loan:

The grating looks like prison bars, and the expression on Jimmy Stewart’s face and in his eyes shows how confused and uncertain he feels.

Here, George learns that his brother Harry is married and his new father-in-law has offered Harry a job with a promising future, one that will keep Harry out of Bedford Falls and prevent him from fulfilling his obligations to George:

Viewers, via the camera, are the only ones who know what George is feeling about the news from his brother.

In addition to the flashbacks, the film uses the unusual narrative technique of depicting life in Bedford Falls as if George Bailey had never been born. At approximately 1:44:17 until approximately 2:01:47, George sees what would have become of everyone he knows and the town he lives in if he had never lived at all. By the time It’s a Wonderful Life is in the middle of this sequence, he is beyond the disappointment we have seen in his face in earlier close-ups. In the following still, he is desperate to learn what has become of his wife, Mary:

The flashbacks, unusual narration, and the dark cinematography give It’s a Wonderful Life a noir aspect that’s easy to overlook in the way the film was and is marketed to audiences. Its bracket story does indeed take place on Christmas Eve, but it really isn’t a simple Christmas movie. It’s a complicated story that happens to have many noir elements, which probably explains why this story about George Bailey endures.