Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Robert Mitchum may have been a little long in the tooth to play Philip Marlowe, and the film itself is no hipster revisionist tale like Robert Altman did with The Long Goodbye just a few years earlier. Farewell, My Lovely is a straight throwback to the classic days of Bogart, Powell, and Montgomery. Mitchum, of course, starred in many classic noirs: Out of the Past, Angel Face, The Racket and Where Danger Lives are just a few. This was Mitchum’s first time portraying the P.I. In 1978, Mitchum would again play Marlowe in the Michael Winner remake of The Big Sleep. That film was a bit of a misfire. While not as bad as its reputation, let’s just say Bogart and Howard Hawks have nothing to worry about.

Short Takes: Wall Street, Mitchum, Lincoln and Mansfield!

This edition of Short Takes includes one underrated fairly new film, from 2011, a made for television movie along with communists, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Joan Blondell and Jayne Mansfield.

Trial (1953) Mark Robson

A courtroom drama, filled with hot topics like racism, vigilantism, the Klu Klux Klan, communism, police brutality, paranoia and the influence of the media. On trial, a Mexican youth accused of murdering a local white girl. One of his lawyers (Arthur Kennedy) is more interested in using the boy as a martyr to raise money for the communist party while the other (Glenn Ford) is an idealistic young law professor who never tried a case before. Made during the McCarthy witch hunt era the story line has a strong anti-communist feel to it, but still manages to reflect some of dark sides of the American dream.

The Lusty Men (1952) Nicholas Ray

Nicholas Ray was a visual poet, using the camera like a paintbrush, each stroke expressively revealing an idea or making an enduring impression. In film after film, we see Ray’s camera articulate the emotions of his alienated characters, like Jim Stark in “Rebel Without a Cause” or Bowie in “They Live by Night.” Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) is another of Ray’s outsiders living on the edge of society. McCloud is a former rodeo champion, beaten down by too many years of too many injuries and hard living. He heads back to his hometown only to find out there is not much to go home too (the home he grew up in is now owned by someone else). Looking for a job he signs up as a ranch hand where he meets Wes Merritt (Arthur Kennedy) and his wife Louise (Susan Hayward). Wes harbors dreams of becoming a champion bronco rider which would help finance the ranch he and his wife have long desired to have. Louise fears Wes is chasing after rainbows and will only end up injured and worst, a loser like McCloud.  In spite of Louise’s concern, the three soon quit the ranch and hit the rodeo circuit with McCloud acting as Wes’ trainer and sidekick.   

Ray goes on to reveal the unglamorous underbelly side  of the rodeo world depicting it filled with damaged, rowdy losers whose winnings, if there are any, are lost the same night on women and drink. Their life is one of nomadic gypsies chasing the circuit devoid of any taste of stability or roots in their life. The women remain behind the scenes cheering and worrying at the same time about their man. How many more rides before he gets severely injured or even worst.

 

Angel Face (1952) Otto Preminger

Review contains spoilers

Poor Robert Mitchum, how those sleepy bedroom eyes always seemed to get him in so much trouble with the ladies. In John Brahm’s “The Locket” he tossed himself out a window because of Lorraine Day, in “Out of the Past”, he had to go face to face with the wicked Jane Greer, while in “Where Danger Lives” he is a chump for Faith Domergue, and in “Angel Face” the porcelain gentile beauty of Jean Simmons sends both of them to a plunging death in Otto Preminger’s final film noir.

“Angel Face” was late in the cycle of classic noir and at first glance seems to be a redundant rehash of everything that came before it:  the male pawn, the deviant femme fatale, sexual obsession and snippets of incest; all common themes. Even the courtroom scene here it has been pointed out by various writers is a facsimile of the courtroom scene in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” to the extent that the prosecuting attorney in both films is portrayed by Leon Ames. Yet in watching this film, it yields many fine and unique elements beginning with a simmering dark perverse performance by Jean Simmons, one of her finest. Throughout the film, Simmon’s character Diane Tremayne remains a bleak, depressed, manipulative and seriously dangerous femme fatale deriving little pleasure from any of her actions. She’s a blank slate. In luring Mitchum’s chump ambulance driver, Frank Jessup into unknowingly conspiring in murder; she derives neither personal joy nor any odd sexual satisfaction.  The film’s surprising and shocking ending reflects and confirms Diane’s determination for control even if the price of that power is death. It was one of the most daringly cynical endings ever be put on film up to that time.

Where Danger Lives (1950) John Farrow

“Where Danger Lives” starts on an odd little note, or maybe it is just me. Dr. Jeff Cameron (Robert Mitchum) is telling a bedtime story to a sick little girl in the hospital. It is a strange beginning because as we soon find out it has nothing to do with the rest of the story. You end up with the feeling it was just padding for a film that runs only 82 minutes. We soon meet the real woman of the story, Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue), a suicide victim and as the movie progresses we find out a bit of a psychotic. The film moves to the dark side as Dr. Jeff falls for this beautiful, yet seemingly vulnerable woman, and as he and we soon will find out, she is anything but vulnerable, more like deceitful, dangerous and pure evil.

    From RKO pictures released in 1950, “Where Danger Lives” is at times a riveting film noir whose characters spiral insanely out of control more and more as the film comes to a maniacal end. Dr. Jeff Cameron saves the life of suicide victim, Margo Lannington. They are soon attracted to each other and quickly become involved. She tells him she lives with her rich controlling father. Unknown to Jeff, Margo’s “father” is really her husband (this is the first of many lies she weaves) and when he confronts her sadistic hubby, Frederick (Claude Rains) who tries to warn Jeff that once he starts down this path there is no turning back, an argument ensues and Frederick attacks Jeff with a fireplace poker. After several severe strikes, Jeff manages to knocks Frederick down and out with a Mitchum size power punch. Jeff, dazed from the beating by the husband, stumbles to the bathroom to wash off the blood. When he returns still dazed, a concussion setting in, he discovers Frederick is dead. Jeff wants to call the police but Margo insists they can’t. Who is going to believe them that it was an accident, she says. We find out later Margo smothered Frederick to death while Jeff was out of the room attending his wound. However, she leaves the impression that Jeff’s punch did Frederick in. For the remainder of the film we find the two fugitives on a nightmarish, doomed, almost surrealistic journey as they attempt to escape across the U.S. Mexican border.

Jeff continues to suffer from the concussion and the formerly meek Margo asserts herself while Jeff, earlier the self-assured professional, remains confused and dazed. Margo’s behavior is erratic only making things more confusing for Jeff. She refuses to listen to radio reports about the police pursuit, knowing that the truth about her husband’s death will be discovered, and Jeff will become aware of what really happened; how she smothered him to death and he did not die from a head trauma from Jeff’s punch. Their trip to the border is one of avoiding roadblocks, most of which unknown to them, were set up for other reasons unrelated to their fleeing. At one point, they stop in a small town where they are unexpectedly arrested, though not for being fugitives but because Jeff does not have a beard! It seems they arrived during the small town’s annual beard festival where every man is required to have a beard.

    While the overall film is uneven, the climatic ending in the border town is one of the film’s highlights, as is the cinematography of the great Nicolas Muscusa who provides a nightmarish darkly lit claustrophobic look, filled with low angle shots that gives the film much of its stylistic visual appeal.  Robert Mitchum is in his element here and is a joy to watch, working those sleepy eyes as he gives us a character that is sucked into the claws of a dangerously off balanced woman, similar in her treachery to “Angel Face” Jean Simmons in the Otto Preminger classic he would make two years later. Mitchum has a great scene where her stumbles down a flight of stairs. Shot in one continuous take, Mitchum did the fall without the assistance of a double.

Faith Domergue is convincingly immoral, seemingly possessed by the role of Margo, an archetypal femme fatale. Though probably best remembered for her role in “This Island Earth” and as another in the long line of Howard Hughes “discoveries”, this is the role of her career. Claude Rains is his usual smooth self as Frederick, at first amused by Jeff’s infatuation with his wife; he even attempts to warn him that Margo is not what or who he thinks she is.  Unfortunately, his role is all too brief. Even briefer is Maureen O’Sullivan’s (director John Farrow wife) role as Jeff’s good girlfriend, Julie Dorn. The screenplay is by Charles Bennett who is best remembered as a long time associate of Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage and Foreign Correspondent).

Overall, the film is an uneven mix, some scenes seemingly there just for padding i.e. the entire wedding scene. “Where Danger Lies” may be an uneven noir but with fine performances by Mitchum and Domergue and especially with Macursa behind the camera it is a must see.