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Noir City DC -- first weekend
This weekend I've seen 4 movies as part of the Noir City DC film festival with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenygal. This year's theme: 'Heists, Hold-Ups, and Schemes Gone Wrong.'
Kansas City Confidential
Verdict: An entertaining film with a combined heist/revenge plot, as the guy who was framed for a bank robbery tracks down the robbers and eventually wins out. Also, young Lee Van Cleef has cheekbone so sharp you could shave with them; seeing him young and pretty was almost as distracting as Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog!
Criss-Cross
Verdict: A really amazing heist movie, though for the life of me, I couldn't understand why Burt Lancaster's character was hung up on his ex-wife. But he's kind of dumb, she's selfish, and her current husband is a known criminal, so let's organzie a payroll robbery. Alan Napier's two scene walk-on was were he stole the show; he was playing a criminal planning specialist, hired to get the timing of the heist right (think the Clock King), andgreenygal and I were wondering where the heck we'd seen the actor before, until we looked up his wikipedia entry on her phone, and then it was blatantly obvious from the headshot. He was Alfred on the 1960s Batman tv show.
Also, this was the film debut of Tony Curtis, who was dancing with the femme fatale in one of the nightclub scenes -- the camera focused on her, not him, so he was mostly out of frame, but he was godawful young and so damned pretty!
Criss-Cross is a very satisifying movie, though it ends with a Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies ending.
The Asphalt Jungle
Verdict: WATCH THIS!
It's full of competency porn; all of the criminals are actually good at what they're hired to do in the heist, and the things that go wrong are unavoidable accidents or the result of amateurs -- the lawyer and his private investigators -- messing things up. It's only at the end that Doc's taste for young women delays his getaway, and Dix's obsession with his childhood home prevents him from getting needed medical care.
Also, Jean Hagen is so damned gorgeous in this, even if Doll should dump Dix like the jerk he is...
White Heat
Verdict: Not quite a noir, more truly a gangster movie. But it's James Cagney, giving the performance of his career, directed by Raoul Walsh. It's fantastic! And well worth watching on the big screen.
I am amused that the solution in two of the movies to 'how do we make stolen money untraceable' is 'turn it in for the 25% reward from the insurance company covering the place we stole it from'. That's certainly an interesting way to launder ill-gotten gains.
greenygal. This year's theme: 'Heists, Hold-Ups, and Schemes Gone Wrong.'Kansas City Confidential
Verdict: An entertaining film with a combined heist/revenge plot, as the guy who was framed for a bank robbery tracks down the robbers and eventually wins out. Also, young Lee Van Cleef has cheekbone so sharp you could shave with them; seeing him young and pretty was almost as distracting as Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog!
Criss-Cross
Verdict: A really amazing heist movie, though for the life of me, I couldn't understand why Burt Lancaster's character was hung up on his ex-wife. But he's kind of dumb, she's selfish, and her current husband is a known criminal, so let's organzie a payroll robbery. Alan Napier's two scene walk-on was were he stole the show; he was playing a criminal planning specialist, hired to get the timing of the heist right (think the Clock King), and
greenygal and I were wondering where the heck we'd seen the actor before, until we looked up his wikipedia entry on her phone, and then it was blatantly obvious from the headshot. He was Alfred on the 1960s Batman tv show.Also, this was the film debut of Tony Curtis, who was dancing with the femme fatale in one of the nightclub scenes -- the camera focused on her, not him, so he was mostly out of frame, but he was godawful young and so damned pretty!
Criss-Cross is a very satisifying movie, though it ends with a Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies ending.
The Asphalt Jungle
Verdict: WATCH THIS!
It's full of competency porn; all of the criminals are actually good at what they're hired to do in the heist, and the things that go wrong are unavoidable accidents or the result of amateurs -- the lawyer and his private investigators -- messing things up. It's only at the end that Doc's taste for young women delays his getaway, and Dix's obsession with his childhood home prevents him from getting needed medical care.
Also, Jean Hagen is so damned gorgeous in this, even if Doll should dump Dix like the jerk he is...
White Heat
Verdict: Not quite a noir, more truly a gangster movie. But it's James Cagney, giving the performance of his career, directed by Raoul Walsh. It's fantastic! And well worth watching on the big screen.
I am amused that the solution in two of the movies to 'how do we make stolen money untraceable' is 'turn it in for the 25% reward from the insurance company covering the place we stole it from'. That's certainly an interesting way to launder ill-gotten gains.
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