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Stefan Andersson wrote: Sat Jun 04, 2022 6:23 pm The Undercover Man
5 Against the House
The Lineup
The Mob
Murder by Contract
City of Fear
The Dark Past
Pushover
The Brothers Rico

Good, but you left out my favourites: Drive a Crooked Road and Tight Spot (The Dark Past, on the other hand..)

Final specs for the Bogart box:



Dead Reckoning:




Knock On Any Door:



Tokyo Joe:



Sirocco:



The Family Secret:



The Harder They Fall:

CineSavant digs deep into the Bogart box.

…as does CineOutsider, in even more detail.

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Just wondering… No Three Stooges shorts as extras anymore? Love them.

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None on this fifth boxset, no.

There won't be any more. Sony's decision, not Powerhouse's.

Finally making my way through these sets, and grateful to report that Drive a Crooked Road finally won me over. Quine crafts nothing short of a courageous meditation on loneliness, unafraid to slow down to a painful pace of inertia, forcing us to dwell in the dissonance between our isolated protagonist and the people manipulating his emotional vulnerability, entirely observed from from an appropriately uncomfortable objective distance. It’s in the generous space allotted to these attentive details that the film becomes admirably empathetic and compassionate, while never sacrificing the fatalistic realism of the motivational pull of individualistic drives. What a sad, raw, barely-empowering ending too- an exhibition of actionable compromise and yet uncompromising dedication to character.

The Lineup was a fun bit of nastiness with striking visual prowess and forward momentum, and the rest of the first set was varying degrees of fine- exempting 5 Against the House. I can’t understand why it even exists, and who for.

Framed was a pleasant surprise. It’s nothing special plot-wise, but commits itself to a strong script of narrative withholding, especially in its restrained establishment of faint character and motive. I appreciated the prioritized focus on fleshing out small moments of geniality and vulnerability, with organically minute and ordinary interactions between several dyads of people, informing unnecessarily (but welcome) intricate characterization that still managed to remain implicit rather than fully explicit. The narrative trajectory favors melodrama and mystery over typically suspense-based constructions of noir unveilings. This doesn’t mean anything particularly unexpected happens, but the sensation of mystery formally matches the alienated states of the characters from one another’s motives and plans via informational gatekeeping, and is quite effective in its dedication to this consistent approach.

I enjoyed how the protagonist is a little more wise to suspicion than usual, and the femme fatale is a more ‘realistic’ small town girl-next-door type rather than an oozing individualist pretending to be a submissive dependent. Janis Carter is the MVP here, and sells the femme fatale’s poker face through embracing her character’s socially-informed unsuspecting type as she may be diagnosed in real life, divorced from a cinematic role and consequently far more convincingly nebulous. Ford portrays a more perceptive and intelligent fall-guy, actualizing sober skills we’d hope to be able to locate if placed into a similar position ourselves, half-blind to duplicity and half-aware that something is not quite right, with enough self-preservation to investigate unbound from deterministic id functions.

I'm clearly not the audience for The Sniper, so any boundary-pushing interest in Arthur Franz' titular antihero mostly washed over me. However, I got a kick out of how anti-civilian this movie is. Just when one feels conflicted between seeing the other'ing common folk as either frustratingly boring or a welcome reprieve or boring, when filtered through our surrogate Franz' inability to relate to people in any normal way, we get Frank Faylen's inspector, who clearly loathes ordinary citizens from a position of supreme value in the eyes of the film. They come across like Paparazzo in the final act, and his line, "People, get your heads out of your windows" is so unmistakably a glorious Code-taunting "get your heads out of your asses" plant, after all the shade he's thrown at them just prior to this moment (plus, well, the whole movie), that I found myself awestruck with glee at how Dmytryk got away with such an implicit Fuck You on multiple levels (to the censors, and the audience of civilians). I'm not sure if The Sniper really winds up being successful as a pro-cops propaganda film, but I do enjoy the blatant condescension that comes with that part of it. It's just so inconsistent with its split focus; toeing the line between fear and sympathy for Franz and also hyping up the police force, leaving ordinary people at the bottom of the totem pole of interest, which seems like a curious and insipid choice if you're not going to take that idea all the way.

The screenplay is barely more than a one-line plot synopsis, but what gives the 50s nuke-noir City of Fear distinction is Lucien Ballard’s location-heavy cinematography and an early Jerry Goldsmith score. Mark Ruffalo is a startling lookalike of star Vince Edwards.

TOKYO JOE is plainly an attempt to rehash Casablanca in post-war Japan (Bogie even calls his European love interest “kid”), but the screenplay is digressive and plodding. It certainly left an impression on Bryan Ferry, though - having written 2HB for Bogart, he later released a single called Tokyo Joe, and These Foolish Things (title track of his first solo album) gets played to death.

Can’t find a better place to post this, but what’s the deal with the horse in Saved by the Belle? That’s a pretty crazy gag.

Also incidentally, it’s fun finding out how many major figures worked on the Three Stooges. Lucien Ballard DPed so many of these.

Caught up with the Family Secret and found it a peculiar oddity. Tonally, this is straight-up melodrama with no real noir elements in practice even if the plot set-up sounds otherwise (which also explains why I'd never even heard of it before this box). I found the disconnect between Derek's actions and the amount of time spent by the film humanizing him via his romantic machinations towards his secretary a little much to swallow, especially in the sequences where he gets full on rapey. But I also perversely enjoyed the scenes between these two for how out of step they are with the film itself. I think the eventual payoff here is absurd, even for Hollywood, as truly by the time Derek decides to the do the right thing, he 100% only does it because it selfishly serves himself yet again and yet the film tries to paint it as selfless. I think not.

The new Indicator Cast Podcast has an interview with Sam Dunn and John Morrissey where they reveal the new deal for another 60 Columbia titles that will take seven years to release - more Joan Crawford, more Hammer, but also "there will be more noir sets" (plural!). Best guess, light green then violet?

I'm guessing those Kit Parker sets might become a little more redundant.

Bumped to flag up the announcement of Columbia Noir #6, in the first post of this thread.

There are also YouTube previews of The Whistler and The Power of the Whistler.

I watched all eight of these last fall. Glad they were able to figure out the rights to the title missing from Mill Creek’s set so that it’s complete. These are not particularly good films, but most of them are watchable and a couple are okay— not really a compelling defense, but I’ll be picking it up. Plus, you’ll certainly see a lot more Dix than you ever thought possible!

domino harvey wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:40 pmbut you’ll certainly see a lot more Dix than you ever thought possible

We are not talking nude. I really cannot stress this enough.

Joking aside, watching these films in close quarters gives a former star turned c-string studio player with limited abilities an oddly endearing and comforting quality by the end of it. When you get to the entry without him, you really do miss him!

I probably should finally go through boxes 1-5 already...grabbing them at the time I did was obviously smart, but I'm seriously due to go through them and all their commentaries

ryannichols7 wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 3:47 pm I probably should finally go through boxes 1-5 already...grabbing them at the time I did was obviously smart, but I'm seriously due to go through them and all their commentaries

By sheer inertia even if set #10 spotlights "romantic comedies by NOIR stars" I'd still feel obligated to pick it up. Surfing a endless wave of LE releases, the actual hobby seems to be programming a hypothetical film season stretching into my dotage, but on the bright side it means I'll get around to some in time for their hundredth.

ikms wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 1:12 pmBy sheer inertia even if set #10 spotlights "romantic comedies by NOIR stars"

<takes notes>

I thought the Bogie box was the worst one, this might be even worse but at least it'll be more interesting, and will actually include The Whislter in all of the films.

Final specs for Columbia Noir #6: The Whistler:



Disc One: The Whistler/The Mark of the Whistler:



Disc Two: The Power of the Whistler/Voice of the Whistler:



Disc Three: Mysterious Intruder/The Secret of the Whistler:



Disc Four: The Thirteenth Hour/The Return of the Whistler:

Just got #6 and had a quick read through some of Tim Lucas' piece. Coincidentally Movie Nights & Matinees podcast dropped a new episode today with guest Dan Van Neste who recounts some of the work that went into writing a book on the series, and they mention how The Mark of the Whistler is a PD title (assume why Sony didn't supply an HD master for the set) - a missed opportunity on his participation, neither podcaster seemed aware of the Indicator set.