The Naked City

The main gimmick of this movie is the narrator, who maintains his kind of breathy 1950's "Aw shucks" attitude throughout the whole film, even while the story is at its darkest noir moments. It really holds up pretty well as a device, giving the movie a tone that I don't think I've seen in any other movie. The closest thing I could think of would be the scenes from Natural Born Killers with the laugh-track and Rodney Dangerfield, but this is so so much better than that. I think Stone was pretty much mocking the sit-com tone in those scenes (it's been such a long time since I saw that movie), but I don't think Dassin was strictly going after satire with the voice-over in this movie.

The only other Dassin movie I've seen before this was Rififi, which is one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen. I was expecting some kind of flair here, after I realized it was the same director, but there's really not a whole lot in this movie. That's probably necessary. I think if too much of it had looked like a really well-shot movie, it would've undermined the thing it had going with the voice-over guy. I do, though, wonder if it was intentional that the most compelling actor in the whole movie doesn't show up until the end: the killer. He actually managed to convince me they'd somehow got the wrong guy, despite the obvious impossibility of that.

And what was up with Niles's smokin' hot housewife?! Was she supposed to represent some kind of extremely subtle critique of late-forties societal sexism (because structurally she doesn't occupy a position that's supposed to be sexualized on the screen, but, seriously, she sure made me feel sexualized...)?

Ultimately, though I did want the actual noir part of the story to be darker and more intriguing. The actual plot itself just wasn't up to par with the device built around it. Also, I think the photography of the city was supposed to be impressive, but I don't think I know enough about the context or about the way cities were normally photographed in movies at the time, because I didn't see a whole lot that I felt impressed by, other than the final chase scene and the killer's ascension of the bridge tower.

Kiss Me Deadly

Holy shit!

I cannot believe I didn't know about this movie. I can't believe I sat on it for so long, either (I got it in the mail from Netflix several weeks ago, maybe over a month ago, and just didn't get around to watching it...) The Netflix description on their little sleeve says:

"Shortly after sleazy detective Mike Hammer picks up a scantily clad hitchhiker, his car is forced over a cliff. He awakens from unconsciousness to find his passenger dead -- but it wasn't the fall that killed her. As Hammer sets out to uncover the woman's deadly secret and find her unknown assassins, he ignores explicit signs that he should mind his own business. This classic film noir was adapted from Mickey Spillane's novel by the same name."

Well, I guess that's not technically wrong in any way, but wow does it undersell the movie. In a way I suppose I'm kind of glad that I didn't really know what to expect when I went into it, because I probably wouldn't have been quite as floored by it, but how is it that I've never seen superlatives being thrown around w/r/t to this movie before?

Anyway, even before the ending it's amazing. Hammer is such a total sleazeball, and the way every woman just throws herself at him is almost surreal, especially with his complete lack of interest it. And there was actually a lot of really well-written dialogue throughout, mostly being spoken by women. And. And. And.

Okay, I don't really have a lot to say about this right now, except that I think that lots of parts of this movie must have been the source for various scenes in Lost Highway, and there were shots from this movie being watched in the background throughout Southland Tales, so apparently the movies known in certain circles.

I want to buy it.

Detour

The bad transfer is almost like an extra stylistic effect, making the story seem even more murky than as it was originally filmed--and it was plenty murky. Neal's Roberts probably isn't supposed to be but comes off as kind of deranged. One minute he's a sullen pushover, but then he flies off the handle at slight provocation. The strangest shift was probably at the beginning of the flashback, when he gets sore that his dame is moving to LA and promised not to speak to her ever again. Next thing, he's pounding away at the piano in his club without a band, playing really brilliantly except he keeps shifting to a new song every twenty seconds or so. That is something that didn't seem intentional, although I'd believe it was. It makes the whole thing seem just a little bit more like a memory--a much more interesting way of accomplishing that than the standard fog flying around everywhere through these early scenes.

Further evidence for the total subjectivity of the flashback: his gf, once she's out in LA, apparently just sits there waiting by the phone with a blank hopeful expression on her face. Roberts apparently only remembers his side of the conversation, as he doesn't leave time for her to respond to any of the questions he asks. There's even a cut to her open face while he just rambles right on through her lines. Maybe he was on speed? It's the only time he ever appears happy in the film, and it seems like crazy happiness, not just being really happy about anything. Also, I think he just got up in the middle of his shift playing the piano and left the club to make his manic phone call.

Best shot in the whole film is Ann Savage walking toward the car after Roberts says he'll give her a lift. It's held just a little longer than it needs to be for the effect of just pushing the plot along, and it's really kind of a beautiful shot, with Savage's road-weary face and hair and her sure stride. The length of the shot turns it into something far prettier than it was intended to be, and it's kind of funny that it was probably basically an editing blunder, because I don't know if the vocabulary for that type of shot quite existed yet at the time this was made. But it's pure film, right there.

Then, later, in the car, with Vera sitting in the passenger seat exactly as Haskell had when he died, and Roberts is talking about that very fact, and suddenly Vera's eyes are open! Totally creepy! I didn't see her eyes open or anything, and she doesn't move her head or body at all which just made it extra scary. Her eyes are just suddenly open and she's staring at him, and he doesn't notice at first so he just stares out ahead of the car and rambles on in the voiceover. Then, Bam! Closeup of Vera screeching, "What have you done with the body!" Really brilliant!

Ann Savage really does steal the movie. She seems to be the only one in the show who can actually act, and the way she screeches half her lines outshrews even Liz Taylor, but with barely even a breath she's sometimes all of a sudden very sexy. It's amazing how she goes from repulsive to sexy so quickly, often without the help even of changed camera angles or anything. But you never really feel anything about her but fear.

Really funny but kind of cheap how Roberts lectures Vera on the way to the used car guy about how she should let him do all the talking, but when they get there he doesn't say a word. And then in the voiceover he talks about "we haggled" for the right price, but it still seems like he probably didn't speak.

Also it was especially creepy that Vera seemed the most purely attractive and sexy when she was dead. She was shot to look beautiful at that point, even. Instead of showing what would have been a truly gruesome picture, most likely, at that point she becomes a true femme fatale.