Three noirs: Double Indemnity (1944), Out of the Past (1947), + Touch of Evil (1958)

Great, trashy, doom-and-gloom, can't-win-don't try kind of fun. "Double Indemnity" is the only Billy Wilder movie I really love (sorry, my filmsnob cred sinks). I saw "Touch of Evil" in the theater during it's 50th anniversary re-release, the other two on DVD.


Double Indemnity (1944, 107 min, NR) **** - Directed & co-written by Billy Wilder, starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson.

Two hours of Fred MacMurray referring to Barbara Stanwyck as “baby” with varying degrees of contempt. One of the best movies ever made.



Out of the Past (1947, 97 min, NR, B&W) **** - Directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer.

“Do you know a way to win?” “I know a way to lose slower.” Trashy pulp noir par excellence that puts the jaded, weary cynicism of the noir hero front and center, just behind a heavy veil of cigarette smoke. A former private eye (Mitchum) trying to start a new life is drawn back into the schemes of a femme fatale (Greer) and her grinning gangster boyfriend (Douglas). The labyrinthine plot of murders and doublecrosses is almost unfathomable, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is the sleepy, passionless resignation Mitchum uses to respond to the world; he doesn’t believe for a second that he can escape his fate and acts only so he won’t regret not trying later. Priceless and endlessly quotable “can’t win, don’t try” dialogue.



Touch of Evil (1958, 112 min, NR) **** - Directed & written for the screen by Orson Welles, starring Charlton Heston, Welles, and Janet Leigh.

One of the highest, most glorious pieces of trash ever put to film. Welles, the master of shadows, is sometimes credited with making the first proper film noir (“Citizen Kane”) and the last film noir (“Touch of Evil”). Besides its elements of autobiography — Welles’ crooked police captain is a bloated waster who’s never lived up to his early potential — “Touch of Evil” is a pure genre film, brought to greatness 90 per cent by phenomenal camera work and 10 per cent by good acting. The famous opening shot lasts minutes and minutes and follows competing storylines on the same street, one a happy couple and the other a car with a bomb in the trunk, as different music washes in and out. An honest cop fades two crooks in the shadow of an old ferris wheel, leering thugs are shot gigantic from below, unnatural shadows go wild across menacing walls. Story? A play on racial mores of the time, a straight-arrow Mexican cop (yeah, Charlton Heston, genius miscasting) and an ogre of an American police captain (Welles, beneath pounds of padding) compete to solve a bordertown murder. Heston’s blonde bombshell wife (Leigh) gets caught in the middle of dirty cops, honorable crooks, betrayal, and gangs. The definition of atmospheric and the winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.