Dancing on the Edge (Television Series) (2013)

February 4, 2013, to March 10, 2013, broadcast dates (Five or six episodes? See discussion below.)

Directed by Stephen Poliakoff

Written by Stephen Poliakoff

Music supervision by Hothouse Music Ltd.

Jazz arrangements by Paul Englishby

Edited by Chris Wyatt (Episodes 1–6), Matthew Gray (Episode 6)

Cinematography by Ashley Rowe

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Louis Lester

Angel Coulby as Jessie Taylor

Wunmi Mosaku as Carla

Ariyon Bakare as Wesley Holt

Chris Storr as Joe, trumpet player

Jay Phelps, second trumpet

Charles Angiama, clarinet

Oroh Angiama, bass

Miles Brett, tenor saxophone

Trevor Edwards, trombone

Cosimo Keita, drums

Steve Williamson, alto saxophone

Matthew Goode as Stanley Mitchell

Jenna Coleman as Rosie Williams

Sam Hoare as Eric Stillman

Allan Corduner as Mr. Wax

Jacqueline Bisset as Lavinia, Lady Cremone

John Goodman as Walter Masterson

Tom Hughes as Julian Luscombe

Joanne Vanderham as Pamela Luscombe

Janet Montgomery as Sarah Peters

Rob Edwards as Sarah’s father

Anthony Head as Arthur Donaldson

John Hopkins as Prince George, Duke of Kent

Sam Troughton as the Prince of Wales

Mel Smith as Nathan Schlesinger

Miles Richardson as Harry Thornton

Maggie McCarthy as Mrs. Mitchell

Caroline Quentin as Deirdre

David Dawson as Detective Inspector Horton

Gerard Horan as Detective Inspector Gunson

Katherine Press as Hannah

Produced by Endgame Entertainment/Playground, Creative England, LipSync Productions, Ruby Film and Television

Broadcast by BBC

I watched Dancing on the Edge on DVD. Everything I have read online indicates that the series originally aired only five episodes. The DVD version that I watched included a sixth episode, and the version shown on PBS in the United States broke down these six episodes into eight episodes shown on eight different nights. The sixth episode on the DVD (the eighth episode on PBS) could be interpreted as introducing a new story line, one that is connected to Louis Lester and the Freemasons but could have continued without Louis. (The Freemasons play a pivotal role in the plot of the first five episodes.)

I think Dancing on the Edge would have been better as a series without the sixth episode, and I don’t know why it’s included on the DVD if a second season was never produced. Compared to the first five episodes, the sixth episode is also a bit of a clunker: Viewers watch Stanley’s interviews with Louis, Carla, Jessie, and then Louis again, and then they watch Louis and mostly a woman who calls herself Josephine talk on the telephone. The series, on the DVD, ends with a dull episode, with dull visuals; the first five episodes, however, make up for the sixth.

Dancing on the Edge is a story about a jazz band—the Louis Lester Band—trying to make its fortune in 1930s London. The soundtrack is original work for the show, and it is wonderful. The band members, all black musicians, meet all sorts of people during their stay in London. Some want to help the band; others are dead set against the band and individual members. Some of this conflict adds to the noir mood.

But what, exactly, makes Dancing on the Edge noir at all?

(This blog post about the television series Dancing on the Edge contains spoilers.)

Episode 1 starts with an unidentified man, in a top hat and cape, walking the late-night streets of London in 1933. The camera follows him as he tries to avoid detection on the street. When he enters a rundown office building, he avoids people there, too, until he meets a young man working on the second floor. He (viewers don’t know yet that it’s Louis Lester) says, “I need you to get me out of the country, Stanley.” Stanley and Louis need a plan, so Stanley puts on one of Louis’s records, a jazz record, which then prompts the fade-out/fade-in transition to eighteen months earlier. The flashback takes viewers to daylight, to brighter and happier times (in either 1931 or 1932).

Flashbacks, one of the hallmarks of noir, are used very effectively in Dancing on the Edge. Episodes 2 to 5 use flashbacks to previous episodes as a way to remind viewers about important plot developments. I found these to be very smooth transitions: The reminders orient viewers without an intrusive voice-over announcing something like, “From the previous episode.” The reminders are most often Louis Lester’s memories of recent events, and seeing them from his perspective makes the story much more seamless.

Even more important is that most of the events leading up to Louis’s reasons for needing to leave the country are told in flashback. Viewers have no idea in Episode 1 why he is so desperate to leave, and they have to watch subsequent episodes to find out. Flashbacks reveal Louis’s story and the mystery behind his series-opening statement to Stanley Mitchell. Episode 5 is the first one in which most of the story is told in the present, when viewers see how Louis and those still loyal to him send him on his way.

In the meantime, Louis and his band members face betrayal, angst, loneliness, bureaucratic red tape: in other words, more hallmarks of noir. In the context of Dancing on the Edge, however, these noir plot developments occur in an atmosphere of racial prejudice. As long as the band and its members are famous and well received by royalty and the upper class, they are welcome. The minute suspicions creep in, people turn against them. For example, Wesley Holt, the band’s manager, faces deportation because the hotel’s manager refuses to come to his defense and say that he is integral to the band’s performance. When Wesley Holt loses his battle with the Alien Registration Office, he feels betrayed by Louis Lester, too.

Louis himself comes under suspicion of murder, and some of his friends and acquaintances turn on him quickly after the police focus their investigation on him. Some of them are especially eager to see him arrested simply because he is a black musician. Some of them are trying to protect their own, and they don’t care at all about justice, guilt, or innocence. Louis has to figure out who can be trusted and how to navigate an increasingly hostile situation.

If I had a scale, with 0 being “not neo-noir” and 10 being “definitely neo-noir,” I might put Dancing on the Edge at a 7 or an 8. And if deciding if the series were noir wasn’t a factor at all, and I was allowed to lop off Episode 6 completely, I would give the television series an 8 or a 9. It’s so much fun to watch, and I think it is a neo-noir, with betrayal, anxiety, murder, and flashbacks. The jazz music, another hallmark of later film noir, makes for some fantastic listening, and it’s integral to the plot, too. The list of characters at the beginning of this post is unusually long because the Louis Lester Band members have to be included, of course. But I would still take out Episode 6!

Side Street (1950)

March 23, 1950, release date

Directed by Anthony Mann

Screenplay by Sydney Boehm

Based on a story by Sydney Boehm

Music by Lennie Hayton

Edited by Conrad A. Nervig

Cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg

Farley Granger as Joe Norson

Cathy O’Donnell as Ellen Norson

James Craig as George Garsell

Paul Kelly as Captain Walter Anderson

Jean Hagen as Harriette Sinton

Paul Harvey as Emil Lorrison

Edmon Ryan as Victor Backett

Charles McGraw as Detective Stan Simon

Edwin Max as Nick Drumman

Adele Jergens as Lucille Colner

Harry Bellaver as Larry Giff, cabdriver

Whit Bissell as Harold Simpson, chief teller

John Gallaudet as Gus Heldon, bar owner

Esther Somers as Mrs. Malby, Ellen’s mother

Harry Antrim as Mr. Malby, Ellen’s father

Ben Cooper as the young man at the drycleaner’s

King Donovan as Detective Gottschalk

Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

The first time that I started watching Side Street, I caught it on television and started somewhere in the middle. And I couldn’t bear to finish it: I couldn’t bear to see Joe Norson, the main character, in so much trouble. The second time that I watched the film (from start to finish), I realized that the ability of viewers to identify with Joe, his wife Ellen, and their newborn son is the film’s best feature. I cared about Joe, in spite of the fact that he made one bad decision and spent the remainder of the screen time trying get out of serious trouble.

(This blog post about Side Street contains spoilers.)

Captain Walter Anderson (played by Paul Kelly) is the narrator of the film. He’s the voice of reason, and he’s the clue that Joe and Ellen will be fine at the end. His voice-over narration describes New York City as a city of opposites, good and bad, and it reminded me of the television show The Naked City (it also added to the semidocumentary style of the film). Here is the beginning of Captain Anderson’s opening voice-over:

New York City: an architectural jungle where fabulous wealth and the deepest squalor live side by side. New York, the busiest, the loneliest, the kindest and the cruelest of cities. I live here and work here. My name is Walter Anderson. I’m one of an army of 20,000 whose job is to protect the citizens in this city of 8 million. So twenty-four hours a day, you’ll find our men on Park Avenue, Times Square, Central Park, Fulton Market, the subway. Three hundred and eighty new citizens are being born today in the city of New York. One hundred and sixty-four couples are being married. One hundred and ninety-two persons will die. Twelve persons will die violent deaths and at least one of them will be a victim of murder. A murder a day, every day of the year. And each murder will wind up on my desk. . . .

And here is how Captain Anderson closes the film:

This is the story of Joe Norson. No hero, no criminal. Just human, like all of us. Weak, like some of us. A bit foolish, like most of us. Now that we know some of the facts, we can help him. He’s gonna be all right.

Even though Joe’s story is told in a factual, impartial style, Captain Anderson’s reassurance about Joe’s fate was a great relief to me. It’s hard not to root for a family man who loves his wife and child and would do anything to make both of them happy. And Side Street shows us one story, out of so many, which makes viewers’ investment personal. (The same could be said about The Naked City, in which each television episode closed with the following line: “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”)

Fate plays a large role in Side Street and is almost like another character. Joe Norson makes one really bad decision because he wants the promise of a better postwar life, because he wants the best for his wife and son. Instead, he initiates a series of related coincidences that escalate quickly out of his and anyone else’s control—until the law steps in and promises to do what it can to correct his mistake. At the end of the film, Captain Anderson’s voice-over could also stand as a warning: What happened to Joe Norson could happen to anyone.

Side Street also opens with a lot of foreboding that the voice-over narration merely accentuates. The opening music lets viewers know the tone of the film from the beginning. The movie title and opening credits are shown over beautiful but dizzying—and disorienting—aerial shots of Manhattan. After the overhead shots, the camera goes down to street level and viewers see street scenes. One of them is the sub-Treasury building, where the chase scene at the end of the film comes to a halt. Coming down to street level brings viewers into the city and into Joe Norson’s story, again on an intimate level.

The chase scene near the end of the film deserves particular notice. According to film historian Richard Schickel, who provided the audio commentary on the DVD, the car chase, when Joe Norson, George Garsell, and the cabdriver Larry Giff are pursued by numerous police cars through Lower Manhattan, was filmed entirely on location. It all ends in front of the sub-Treasury building. The bells of Trinity Church start to ring during Joe and Ellen’s reunion, while Captain Walter Anderson gives his reassuring closing lines.

Side Street has it all for a film described as noir: action, romance, danger, mystery, murder. It is one of those films that can pass the test of time because viewers are asked to identify with the main characters and to sympathize with their plight. It’s almost impossible not to identify with Joe and Ellen Norson, and that is one of many factors that make the film and its story a success.

Not Forgotten (2009)

May 1, 2009 (Austin, Texas), May 15, 2009 (Los Angeles, California), release dates

Directed by Dror Soref

Screenplay by Tomás Romero and Dror Soref

Music by Mark Isham and Cindy O’Connor

Edited by Martin Hunter

Cinematography by Steven Bernstein

Simon Baker as Jack Bishop

Paz Vega as Amaya Bishop

Chloë Grace Moretz as Toby Bishop

Claire Forlani as Katie

Michael DeLorenzo as Casper Navarro

Ken Davitian as Father Salinas

Julia Vera as Doña

Virginia Periera as Karen De La Rosa

Mark Rolston as Agent Wilson

Gedde Watanabe as Agent Nakamura

Melinda Page Hamilton as Deputy Mindy

Benito Martinez as Detective Sanchez

Jim Meskimen as Redd

Julia Vera as Doña Flores

Zahn McLarnon as Calvo

Virginia Pereira as Karen De La Rosa

Daniel R. Escobar as Hector

Distributed by Anchor Bay Films

The title of this film, Not Forgotten, is perfect because it could apply to anyone in the Bishop family: Jack, his second wife Amaya, and his daughter Toby. Not forgetting is the reason behind betrayals, revenge, and almost the entire plot. The phrase “You are not forgotten” usually connotes a positive, happy remembrance, even love for another, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth for the Bishop family.

The film opens with a flashback of a man being strangled. Viewers have no idea who this man is or what he means to the plot. In fact, opening the film with a sequence that turns out to be a flashback is very effective in setting up a mood of confusion and uncertainty, which is one of the reasons I put Not Forgotten in the category of neo-noir.

(This blog post about Not Forgotten contains spoilers.)

The next time that the film returns to the flashback from the opening, viewers see more details. This time, the flashback is shown in the context of Jack Bishop going to Doña Flores, the fortune teller, with his wife for some information about the disappearance of their daughter Toby. The fortune teller has clouded eyes (maybe cataracts?), but when she takes Jack’s hand, the physical contact inspires a vision in which the fortune teller fills in some details about the opening flashback, not enough to clarify everything for viewers but enough to unnerve Jack.

Jack returns to Doña Flores alone and begs for help finding his daughter. Doña Flores tells him to go back to the darkness that he is avoiding, and Jack returns to Tepito, Mexico, his childhood home, where he learned about the mysterious Santa Muerte cult. Santa Muerte is a centuries-old mixture of pagan rituals and Catholicism, and apparently it is favored by prostitutes and drug dealers. And, it turns out, Jack is very familiar with all these worlds.

There is a stark contrast between Jack’s life in Del Rio, Texas, and his return to Mexico. The Santa Muerte rituals and other religious practices in Mexico add to the disturbing ambience of the film. The scraggly landscape between Texas and Mexico and the heat, especially, are integral parts of Not Forgotten, a film I call film brûlant (“burning film”) because of its setting and the heat. In spite of the many scenes filmed at night, it’s almost impossible to forget the heat and the intense pressure that Jack feels about saving his daughter Toby.

The film returns to the opening flashback again as Jack prays on the roof of El Diablito, which is owned by his first wife. This flashback has even more details: It reveals that Jack strangled the man in the flashback and that his first wife was with him and a witness to the crime. Jack enters El Diablito to find his first wife because he believes that she is responsible for the disappearance of their daughter (Toby is their child, not Jack’s and Amaya’s). Jack then kills his first wife: another murder for which he is responsible, as far as viewers know.

Jack Bishop returns one more time to Casa Doña Flores, and this time the house is stripped bare. Amaya and her cousin Casper, the sheriff in Del Rio, Texas, surprise him there, and they reveal to him that Amaya witnessed his murder of the man—her father— in the flashback. She was the child hiding under the bed. Spurred on by revenge, Casper beats Jack nearly unconscious, and Amaya sets Casa Doña Flores on fire. When Jack comes to, he sees that Toby is also in the burning house and carries her out.

Just when everything seems to be resolved in Not Forgotten and Jack can relax again, more questions are raised by his daughter Toby. Jack saves his daughter, but she has been initiated into the Santa Muerte cult, and it is implied by the film’s ending that this initiation will haunt their relationship and that Jack won’t be able to escape his past, no matter where they go.