The Town (2010)

September 8, 2010 (Venice Film Festival), and September 17, 2010 (United States), release dates

Directed by Ben Affleck

Screenplay by Peter Craig, Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Music by Harry Gregson-Williams, David Buckley

Edited by Dylan Tichenor

Cinematography by Robert Elswit

Ben Affleck as Douglas “Doug” MacRay

Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey

Jon Hamm as FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley

Jeremy Renner as James “Jem” Coughlin

Blake Lively as Krista “Kris” Coughlin

Chris Cooper as Stephen MacRay

Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus “Fergie” Colm

Slaine as Albert “Gloansy” MacGloan

Owen Burke as Desmond “Dez” Elden

Titus Welliver as Officer Dino Ciampa

Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty

Brian Scannell as Henry

Isaac Bordoy as Alex Colazzo

Jack Neary as Arnold Washton

Edward O’Keefe as Morton Previt

Victor Garber as David

Produced by Legendary Pictures, GK Films, Thunder Road Pictures

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

The Town has it all—and then some—for a neo-noir: honor among thieves, betrayal, murder, bank robberies, armored car heists, loyalty to family and friends, and romance. The Town is based on the 2004 novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. I have read Hogan’s novel (I am already planning to reread it so that I can post about it). I enjoyed the novel even more, but the film is also a great story. A little bit different from the novel, but a great story all the same. The writers did a wonderful job adapting it to the screen.

I have always wondered if Chuck Hogan borrowed from George V. Higgins, who wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle (it is the basis of the movie by the same name). The similarities between the two films are even more striking, as I mentioned in my blog post dated April 28, 2016. Here are the examples I mentioned in April:

• Use of masks in the heists.

• The robbers don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want the money. In The Town, Jem Coughlin is an exception.

• The bank manager, Mr. Partridge, is blindfolded in the first heist in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, as is Claire Keesey in The Town.

• After the first heist in each movie, the bank manager is left at the beach. In The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mr. Partridge (the bank manager) is told to walk until he finishes counting to 100, and he heads toward the water. In The Town, Claire Keesey (the bank manager) is told to keep walking until she feels the water on her toes (she is barefoot because the robbers took the bank employees’ shoes during the robbery).

In both the novel by Chuck Hogan and in the film, I rooted for Doug and his friends, his partners in crime. In the film, when they pulled the armored car heist in the North End of Boston, I wanted them to escape: I wanted them to make it across the Charlestown Bridge. But I’ll admit, it was mostly because I was rooting for Claire and Doug. If Doug got caught, what would happen to Claire?

When it came to rooting for Doug, the human interest elements helped the most for me. The romance angle was only one part of it. In addition were family complications, emotional debts left unpaid, childhood secrets kept for years. All of this makes for a complicated yet extremely satisfying story. Even though I had read the novel before seeing the film and thought I knew the ending, the film kept me guessing—and changed the ending.

Doug and his friends grew up and still live in Charlestown, Massachusetts: a place where fate plays a dominant role in the lives of the people born there. One of the quotes that opens the film tells viewers, “Bank robbery became like a trade in Charlestown, passed down from father to son.” And almost immediately after, Doug, in voice-over, tells viewers about the next bank robbery he and his friends are about to commit. The bank robbery is also the moment that Doug meets Claire Keesey, although he is already familiar with her work routine as part of his planning for the bank job.

(This blog post about The Town contains spoilers.)

As I recall, the film adheres pretty closely to the book. The film, however, streamlines some details about siblings Krista and Jem Coughlin, and the plot details surrounding FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley are minimized to make him less central to the plot, but the romance between Claire and Doug is left almost intact. I say “almost” because the film’s ending is a complete change compared to the book. I don’t want to say that it’s any less satisfying because I enjoyed the film immensely, but the book stays true to the characters and to the circumstances of their lives.

Part of the tension in the story comes from the relationship between Claire and Doug and all the events Doug sets in motion just by reaching out to her. She may have moved into Charlestown, but she is a newcomer and not one of Doug’s friends—and probably doesn’t want to know them. She represents everything that’s new and upscale, everything that Doug’s friends, especially Jem, resent. They have always lived from hand to mouth in crowded projects. Now people like Claire are moving into renovated homes that Doug and his friends cannot afford (unless they keep robbing banks and never get caught) and being pushed to the fringes of their own neighborhoods. Doug and Claire face social obstacles, to say nothing of the obstacles imposed by his chosen profession of bank robber.

So amid all the gunfire and chase scenes, The Town presents a love story that grows in complexity because of tensions, most of which the two lovers have no control over. The writers of the screenplay may have changed the ending, but this is one film that stands on an almost equal footing with the novel on which it is based. That’s quite an achievement.

The Burglar (Book) (1953)

Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s, by David Goodis

New York: Library of America, 2012

Goodis’s novel The Burglar was originally published in 1953.

List of main characters:

Nat Harbin

Joe Baylock

Dohmer

Gladden

Della

Charles Finley

The image of the front cover is from the Library of America anthology. The page references in this blog post refer to the Library of America publication listed above.

I read The Burglar before I read Nightfall, which was also written by David Goodis and published six years earlier. Nightfall has a decidedly more optimistic ending, although it undoubtedly qualifies as noir literature. It just makes me wonder more about Goodis the person and how much his outlook changed over the years. The Burglar was made into a film by the same name; I saw it a while ago, and it’s on my list to see again, of course.

The main character of The Burglar, Nat Harbin, always tries to do the right thing, according to his own code, and to do excellent work in his profession, which happens to be burglary. This trait of living by his own code of honor is what makes Nat Harbin a sympathetic character, at least for me. It made me root for him and for Gladden.

(This blog post about the novel The Burglar contains spoilers.)

Harbin is the informal leader of a group of four thieves who work heists together. One of them, Gladden, is the daughter of the man who saved Harbin’s life during the Great Depression. Readers find out more about Gladden and her father Gerald later in the novel, but they learn right away that Harbin sticks to his code of honor. In Chapter 2, one of the thieves, Joe Baylock, wants to let Gladden go because he thinks she’s trouble. Harbin refuses: “We’re an organization. One thing I won’t allow is a split in the organization” (page 355).

But Harbin does suggest to Gladden that she take some time off and go to Atlantic City. She wants him to go with her, and he refuses. Their separation sets off a chain of events over which Harbin quickly loses control. On the phone while in Atlantic City, Gladden tells Harbin that she will date other men if he approves. He sees no reason why she shouldn’t. Later, in Chapter 11, Harbin becomes aware that Gladden’s trip to Atlantic City represented a major turning point in their lives. He uses the words the pattern, but the word fate (a common characteristic of noir) would work almost as well:

                The pattern. And all these years, in modified ways, his every move had followed within the pattern. It was always necessary to get back to Gladden, to be with Gladden, to go with Gladden. It was more than habit and it was deeper than inclination. It was something on the order of a religion, or sublimating himself to a special drug. The root of everything was this throbbing need to take care of Gladden.

                A contradiction came into it. He saw the contradiction coming in, beginning that night in the after-hour club when he had suggested to Gladden that she go to Atlantic City and get herself a bit of rest. The contradiction lengthened as he remembered Gladden’s asking him to come with her and his saying no. It meant the pattern was beginning to fall apart, making him susceptible to the formation of another pattern and another drug and another religion or whatever in God’s name had happened to him as he sat there in the restaurant and found himself being dragged across space by the woman’s eyes. (pages 415–416)

While Gladden is in Atlantic City, Harbin meets Della, and he cannot resist her seduction, which begins in the restaurant described at the end of the quote above. After Della suggests that Harbin move into her house in the Pennsylvania hills, Harbin tells Baylock and Dohmer that he is leaving “the organization” for good. He is the one who set the events in motion by insisting that Gladden go away to Atlantic City, but he blames Gladden for the changes in their lives:

The liquid of her [Della’s] lips poured into his veins. There was a bursting in his brain as everything went out of his brain and Della came in, filling his brain so that his brain was crammed with Della. For a single vicious moment he tried to break away from her and come back to himself, and in that moment they were helping him, Dohmer and Baylock. They were helping him as he tried to pull away. But Gladden wasn’t helping. Gladden was nowhere around. Gladden ought to be here, helping. Gladden was letting him down. If Gladden hadn’t gone away, this wouldn’t be happening. . . . (page 375)

Gladden’s father Gerald taught Harbin a trade: burglary. He also taught Harbin why burglary was as good a profession as any other:

. . . According to Gerald, the basic and primary moves in life amounted to nothing more than this business of taking, to take it and get away with it. A fish stole the eggs of another fish. A bird robbed another bird’s nest. Among the gorillas, the clever thief became the king of the tribe. Among men, Gerald would say, the princes and kings and tycoons were the successful thieves, either big strong thieves or suave soft-spoken thieves who moved in from the rear. But thieves, Gerald would claim, all thieves, and more power to them if they could get away with it. (page 416)

If “Wall Street corporations and bankers” were substituted for “princes and kings and tycoons,” Gerald’s description would apply today to some of the rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also implies that taking (stealing, burgling) is part of nature and is natural to humans, too, which is a cynical (and noir) take on life.

Gerald uses corruption as a way to justify his occupation of burglar. He talks about infusing his work with honor, but it is still a cynical way to conduct his work and his life (again perfect for noir):

                Gerald would say that aside from all this, aside from all the filthy dealing involved, the stink of deceit and lies and the lousy taste of conniving and corruption, it was possible for a human being to live in this world and be honorable within himself. To be honorable within oneself, Gerald would say, was the only thing could give living a true importance, an actual nobility. If a man decided to be a burglar and he became a burglar and made his hauls with smoothness and finesse, with accuracy and artistic finish, and got away with the haul, then he was, according to Gerald, an honorable man. . . . (page 417)

Gladden was a young girl when Gerald saved Harbin from starvation, and Harbin always felt responsible for her welfare. His sense of responsibility grew stronger after Gerald died and Gladden had only Harbin to count as family. This very sense of honor, molded to defend a life of crime, is what brings Gladden and Harbin down. The ending is bleak, but it fits the story and the way that the characters, not just Harbin, justify what they do. And it fits because of the way fate—what Harbin calls the pattern—changes in the story. Harbin makes a few simple decisions and changes in his life, and he discovers that he can’t go back to the past—and the pattern—he once knew.

The plot of The Burglar had me guessing at every turn. I enjoy films and novels where I cannot predict where the plot will take me, and The Burglar is definitely one of those novels. Nat Harbin’s code of honor may have a shaky basis, and he might be a bit misguided trying to stick to it, but it gave him principles, something for a reader to find sympathetic. I’m looking forward to seeing the 1957 movie version again and watching more closely how the story is translated to the screen.

The Window (1949)

May 17, 1949 (premiere), August 6, 1949, general U.S. release date

Directed by Ted Tetzlaff

Screenplay by Mel Dinelli

Based on a story “The Boy Cried Murder” by Cornell Woolrich

Music by Roy Webb

Edited by Frederic Knudtson

Cinematography by Robert De Grasse, William O. Steiner

Bobby Driscoll as Tommy Woodry

Barbara Hale as Mrs. Mary Woodry

Arthur Kennedy as Mr. Ed Woodry

Paul Stewart as Mr. Joe Kelerson

Ruth Roman as Mrs. Jean Kelerson

Anthony Ross as Detective Ross

Richard Benedict as murdered seaman

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures

 The Window premiered sixty-seven years ago this month, and the film can still bring viewers to the edge of their seats. The opening sequence shows a city street crowded with tenements, then cuts to Tommy Woodry, the main character, playing in an abandoned building. But it’s not clear at first that he is playing; he might really be hurt instead. When Tommy reaches for the gun that he finds on the floor, I assumed he found a real one. But then he starts calling out to his friends, and the tone of the movie lightens up a little bit—for a little while.

It’s not long before Tommy sees the Kelersons, his neighbors in the apartment upstairs, kill a man they were trying to rob. He witnesses the crime through an open window, from his perch on the fire escape, where he tried to find some relief from the summer heat and get a good night’s sleep. No one believes him when he describes what he witnessed because he’s capable of telling such tall tales. The film makes this clear: He has already told an unbelievable story about shooting someone to his parents at the dinner table. The landlord thinks his family is moving out because he told his friends that he is moving to a ranch that his father owns—somewhere near Tombstone, which he thinks is in Texas.

(This blog post about The Window contains spoilers.)

The on-location scenes place the viewer right in Tommy’s urban neighborhood. The chase later in the film through the abandoned tenement building is especially suspenseful. At one point, the wooden stairs crash, leaving Mr. Kelerson hanging—literally. That shot must have been spectacular in a movie theater with a big screen: The point of view is from under the stairs and the pieces come crashing down from overhead.

And Tommy is under threat—during the chase scene and throughout the film. Mr. Kelerson knocks him unconscious in a cab. He tries to fake an accident for Tommy by placing him on a fire escape railing and leaving him there to fall five stories to his death. Placing a child character in this type of situation, in this amount of danger, is very different from most noirs that I’ve seen so far. I assumed that Tommy would survive all these near-misses because he’s only a child, but the film builds so much tension that I wasn’t sure I could take anything for granted.

I noticed that some of Tommy’s problems don’t come necessarily from the tall tales he tells. Adults are more likely to believe adults than children, it seems to me, and Tommy is no exception in this script. Tommy goes to the police station to report the murder that he witnessed. One of the police detectives escorts him home. That detective believes Tommy’s mother and not Tommy about the Kelersons, although the detective does go up to the Kelersons’ apartment just to be on the safe side. He poses as a repair estimator and snoops around—so adults are capable of telling tall tales, too. Later in the film, when the Kelersons have caught Tommy and are taking him back to their own apartment in a cab, Tommy calls out the window to a patrol officer, who doesn’t believe Tommy when he shouts for help and says that the Kelersons aren’t his parents.

The ending, when the parents finally believe that Tommy was telling the truth all along, seemed a bit saccharine to me, but after all that poor kid went through (knocked unconscious, perched on a fire escape railing five stories up in a staged accident, almost falling from a loose beam), I felt like the film—and I—needed a happy ending. Until the ending, The Window builds on one suspenseful scene after another.