Kick-Back Friday: June 2010 Archives
Killer's Kiss (1955): Stanley Kubrick deserves full credit or blame for nearly everything in this low-budget noir with neorealistic tendencies.* Waiting for a train out of the Big Bad Apple, a washed-up boxer (Jamie Smith) contemplates his brief relationship with a taxi dancer (Irene Kane) and her oppressive boss (Frank Silvera).
The final scene between boxer and villain (which presumably takes place somewhere near the Garment District) evokes the climax in The Lady From Shanghai (1947), with female mannequins substituting for mirrors. It's clear here that Kubrick was in love with the compositional possibilities.
* Given the on-site filming.
Jamie Smith and mannequins in still from Killer's Kiss.
Ball of Fire (1941): Screenwriter Billy Wilder anticipates the urban dictionary in this sublime meeting of a mob-connected singer (Barbara Stanwyck), a monkish grammarian (Gary Cooper), and his 7 professorial mates. There's so much that's great in this movie, it's hard to keep up: Wilder's dizzying dialogue; Stanwyck's and Cooper's effortless timing; DP Toland's camera magic*; director Howard Hawks's typical break-neck pacing; and...ladies and gentlemen, Gene Krupa on the drums!
* One dazzling gem: Toland captures Stanwyck's reflection in a nightclub table while Gene Krupa plays "Drum Boogie" with matchsticks.
Classe Tous Risques (1960): Rough translation, Weigh All Risks (but released in the United States with the very noirish title, The Big Risk).
The end of the road for Abel Davos (Lino Ventura), a career thief with 2 young sons, is told in a cinematic nexus of hard-boiled noir, existentialism, and lingering ideas of social responsibility. Put that in yer film-class paper.
