The 101 Greatest Mystery Films

OTTO PENZLER is the founder and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop
in Manhattan, New York, the founder of The Mysterious Press, as well as The
Armchair Detective Library. Penzler received an Edgar Award for The Encyclo-
pedia of Mystery and Detection, and was honored with the prestigious Ellery
Q u e e n Aw a r d b y T h e M y s t e r y Wr i t e r s o f A m e r i c a f o r h i s m a n y c o n t r i b u t i o n s
to the field. As an editor in the mystery field, Penzler ’s work includes Murder
and Obsession, The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time, and The Best American
Mystery Stories of the Century (edited with Tony Hillerman). Penzler lives in
N e w Yo r k .
The films in this book are ranked in declining order from #101 (the lowest)
to #1 (the best).
AVAILABLE NOW
Alfred Hitchcock Mysteries

The Vertigo Murders
by J. Madison Davis
Amos Walker Mysteries

by Loren D. Estleman
Motor City Blue
Angel Eyes
The Midnight Man
Moses Wine Mysteries

by Roger L. Simon
The Big Fix
Wild Turkey
Peking Duck
The Lost Coast
Otto Penzler Hollywood Mysteries

Laura
by Vera Caspary
Philip Marlowe Mysteries

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe
Anthology; Byron Preiss, Editor
Sherlock Holmes Mysteries

Revenge of the Hound
by Michael Hardwick
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula
Toby Peters Mysteries

by Stuart L. Kaminsky
Murder on the Yellow Brick Road
The Devil Met a Lady
Never Cross a Vampire
COMING SOON
The Glass Highway

An Amos Walker Mystery
Masuto Investigates, Volume 1

A Masao Masuto Mystery Compilation
by Howard Fast
California Roll
A Moses Wine Mystery
by Roger L. Simon
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
101. Charlie Chan at the Opera 1936 3
100. Bullitt 1968 6
99. Anatomy of a Murder 1959 8
98. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold 1965 11
97. Dead End 1937 14
96. The Hound of the Baskervilles 1939 17
95. In a Lonely Place 1950 20
94. Taxi Driver 1976 22
93. The Last Seduction 1994 25
92. High Sierra 1941 28
91. The Woman In the Window 1944 31
90. The Killing 1956 34
89. Reservoir Dogs 1992 37
88. The Ipcress File 1965 40
87. The Kennel Murder Case 1933 43
86. The Glass Key 1942 46
85. Sleuth 1972 49
84. The Grifters 1990 52
83. Bulldog Drummond 1929 56
82. This Gun for Hire 1942 59
81. Strangers On a Train 1951 62
80. A Shot In the Dark 1964 65
79. I Wake Up Screaming 1941 68
78. Fargo 1996 71
77. Harper 1966 74
76. The Fallen Idol 1948 77
75. In the Line of Fire 1993 80
74. Murder On the Orient Express 1974 83
73. Charade 1963 87
72. The Blue Dahlia 1946 90
71. To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 93
70. Kiss Me Deadly 1955 96
69. The Petrified Forest 1936 99
68. The Asphalt Jungle 1950 101
67. In Cold Blood 1967 104
66. The 39 Steps 1935 106
65. Freaks 1932 109
64. Notorious 1946 112
63. Fatal Attraction 1987 114
62. D.O.A. 1950 117
61. Foreign Correspondent 1940 119
60. Suspicion 1941 122
59. Crossfire 1947 125
58. Kiss of Death 1947 128
57. Spellbound 1945 131
56. Topkapi 1964 134
55. Key Largo 1948 137
54. The Fugitive 1993 140
53. The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956 143
vi
52. In the Heat of the Night 1967 146
51. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 149
50. Scarface 1932 152
49. Goldfinger 1964 155
48. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang 1932 158
47. The Manchurian Candidate 1962 161
46. Mean Streets 1973 164
45. Dirty Harry 1971 167
44. Little Caesar 1930 171
43. The Big Heat 1953 173
42 And Then There Were None 1945 175
41. Detective Story 1951 179
40. L.A. Confidential 1997 182
39. The Day of the Jackal 1973 185
38. To Have and Have Not 1944 188
37. Blade Runner 1982 191
36. GoodFellas 1990 195
35. The Untouchables 1987 198
34. Rear Window 1954 201
33. Criss Cross 1949 204
32. Silence of the Lambs 1991 207
31. Murder, My Sweet 1944 210
30. The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946 213
29. The Big Sleep 1946 217
28. Rebecca 1940 219
27. Witness for the Prosecution 1957 222
vii
26. Body Heat 1981 225
25. The Lady Vanishes 1938 227
24. The Killers 1946 230
23. Vertigo 1958 233
22. The Usual Suspects 1995 236
21. Shadow of a Doubt 1943 239
20 The Conversation 1974 242
19. North by Northwest 1959 245
18. Touch of Evil 1958 248
17. The Public Enemy 1931 251
16. The Night of the Hunter 1955 254
15. Sunset Boulevard 1950 257
14. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 1988 260
13. Double Indemnity 1944 263
12. The Sting 1973 266
11. Psycho 1960 269
10. The French Connection 1971 272
9. White Heat 1949 276
8. Out of the Past 1947 279
7. The Thin Man 1934 282
6. Laura 1944 285
5. The Godfather Part II 1974 288
4. The Godfather 1972 291
3. Chinatown 1974 295
2. The Maltese Falcon 1941 299
1. The Third Man 1949 302
viii
To my friends Jane, John, and Pam Burgoyne
Who have made my life so much better in so many ways
INTRODUCTION
The truth of the matter is, although I’ve seen thousands of mys tery movies over
the years, I’m not a film expert.
What I do know about are stories, believable characters, and good dialogue.
Get all three of those into a movie and you’re going to have a pretty good one.
Even if you know every single thing in the world about every camera and every
lens ever created, if you don’t pay attention to the story, character, or dialogue,
you’ll make a lousy movie.
Yes, yes, I know that reviewers and critics will write in glowing terms about
some Polish film that must be played backward to fully appreciate the interplay of
light and dark, and they may indeed be right. But that’s not for me. I want to be
entertained when I go to the movies, and I’ve never found a type of film that,
when it is well done, is as compelling as a mystery.
My definition of a mystery, by the way, is any movie in which a crime, or the
threat of a crime, is central to the plot or the theme. It’s a broad definition, to be
sure, but I think it’s a fair one. A film doesn’t have to be a detective story to be a
mystery, and there are a lot of films discussed in these pages that aren’t detective
stories. Sometimes, even if a detective is present, the movie is not a mystery. Noir
films tend to be about the criminals more often than they are about the people
trying to catch them. Espionage counts, because a crime against the state is as
much or more of a crime than a crime against an individual.
Some groups of movies were eliminated for various reasons. No foreign lan-
guage films are included. It’s personal. I don’t like to read a movie, as subtitles
require, and dubbing is a travesty. If foreign films were included, Les Diaboliques
might have made the list, and possibly High and Low and Purple Noon, and
probably M. But there aren’t any, so don’t look for them.
There are no silent films either. I just don’t think it’s possible to objectively
compare films that are nearly different media. At the least, every aspect of a film
made three-quarters of a century ago is so much clumsier, so much more primi-
tive, that even a well-written story from the silent era pales when contrasted with
the superior technical qualities of film from more modern times.
Finally, there are no made-for-television motion pictures. Mostly, of course,
they aren’t good enough to compete with the-atrical releases because of the
bigger film budgets with which the best actors, writers, directors, and others
1
work. Also, as a practical matter, I simply haven’t seen enough of them in recent
times to be fair in judging. Certainly Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guinness
could have been considered, and so could Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren.
There may be others. But don’t look for them here; that is another book. A
different book.
Is this a subjective listing? Well, of course it is. What else could it be? You may
have a favorite that didn’t make the cut. I’d be shocked if it were otherwise. You
may disapprove of some selections. Ditto.
All I can say in that regard is, if a picture didn’t make it into this book, it wasn’t
an oversight. After compiling an exhaustive list of every possible film, I screened
nearly three hundred of them, making notes along the way. I was surprised how
some favorites from another time did not hold up well on a later viewing, and I
was equally amazed that some of the great ones seemed as fresh and intelligent
after multiple viewings as they did when first released. That’s what makes them
great, I suppose.
I would like to acknowledge the help I received with this book from Harlan
Ellison, Stuart Kaminsky, Natalie Kirpalani, Lorraine Lamm and Pamela Burgoyne-
DeYoung, without whom this book would have been less than it is, and delivered
even later than it was.
—Otto Penzler
New York
2
CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA
1936
TYPE OF FILM: Detective
STUDIO: Twentieth Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Sol W. Wurtzel
DIRECTOR: H. Bruce Humberstone
SCREENWRITERS: Scott Darling and Charles S. Belden; story by Bess
Meredyth
SOURCE: Characters created by Earl Derr Biggers
RUNNING TIME: 66 minutes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Warner Oland .........................................................................................Charlie Chan
Boris Karloff ......................................................................................................Gravelle
Keye Luke .......................................................................Number One Son, Lee Chan
Charlotte Henry ...........................................................................................Mlle. Kitty
Thomas Beck ............................................................................................Phil Childers
Margaret Irving ............................................................................Mme. Lilli Rochelle
Gregory Gaye ...........................................................................................Enrico Barelli
Nedda Harrigan .........................................................................Mme. Lucretia Barelli
Frank Convoy ............................................................................................Mr. Whitely
Guy Usher ..........................................................................................Inspector Regan
William Demarest ..................................................................................Sergeant Kelly
DID YOU KNOW? Warner Oland, the first screen Charlie Chan, was born in
Sweden. His vaguely Oriental appearance got him several roles as Asians, usu-
ally villains, before he was cast as the Honolulu detective in Charlie Chan Car-
ries On, a film now lost. He played the much-loved character from 1931 to 1938 in
sixteen movies, all of which were successful and earned Twentieth Century-Fox
about a million dollars a year in profits, even during the height of the Depression.
Oland used virtually no makeup for his screen appearances, adding only the
goatee to give him his identifying physical characteristic. He lived in Santa Bar-
bara even during filming, driving sixty-five miles each way every day so that he
could live at home.
He became more and more of an alcoholic in later life, and his wife divorced him
3
in 1937. Later that year, in the midst of filming his seventeenth Chan movie,
Charlie Chan at the Ringside, he walked off the set one day and never came
back. He was not seen again until he turned up in his native Sweden, where he
died in his mother’s bed at the age of fifty-eight.
THE STORY: An amnesiac in an asylum plays piano and sings opera. After
seven years of incarceration, an attendant brings him a newspaper, and the
“maniac” recognizes the picture on the front page of an opera star, Mme. Lilli
Rochelle, which seems to bring back his memory. He overpowers the guard and
escapes, setting off a massive manhunt.
Charlie Chan, on his way home to Honolulu with his Number One Son, Lee,
stops into the local police station just before Mme. Lilli bursts in and tells of a
death threat for that night’s performance. The police promise a major presence,
and Chan joins them.
Shortly before the opera, Carnival, is to begin, the escaped lunatic, skulking
around the opera house, is recognized by Mme. Barelli as Gravelle, the great
baritone whom she believed had died in an opera house fire years ago when he
had been locked in his dressing room. He threatens to kill her if she reveals his
identity, and he replaces Enrico Barelli onstage in the role of Mephisto, where his
appearance so terrifies Mme. Lilli that she faints.
Believing that Lilli had truly been stabbed when she passed out, the police
chase Gravelle to Barelli’s dressing room, kick in the locked door, and find Barelli
stabbed to death. While searching for the culprit, Sergeant Kelly falls through a
trap door into Mme. Lilli’s room to find that she, too, has been stabbed.
Although the police are immediately convinced that the sinister Gravelle is the
murderer, Chan doesn’t believe it and convinces the deranged singer to restage
the stabbing scene with Mme. Barelli, who is so terrified of Gravelle that she
panics and the police shoot him. The bullet, however, is not fatal, and Chan is
able to point the finger at the guilty party.
***
A convoluted and irrational plot does not prevent Charlie Chan at the Opera
from being the best of the many Chan movies. In addition to the numerous
familiar situations and fortune-cookie bits of wisdom, the over-the-top perfor-
mance of Boris Karloff makes this an irresistible film. Although he does little
besides skulking menacingly around the opera house, frightening everybody
who sees him, Karloff is nothing less than the most obvious red herring in cinema
4
history. Charlie Chan at the Race Track is better plotted, and the background of
Charlie Chan at the Olympics is fascinating, but the appeal of Charlie Chan at
the Opera remains unmatched. It was the favorite of Keye Luke, the popular
Number One Son.
The opera, Carnival, was especially commissioned for this film from Oscar
Levant; William Kernell wrote the libretto.
Several sources report authoritatively that Boris Karloff did his own singing
and that his voice was not dubbed, as is reported in numerous other sources.
Keye Luke, who was on the set, wondered who had done the dubbing but al-
lowed the possibility that it was Karloff’s own voice. Watching the movie and
hearing the voice, however, it does not seem likely that such a strong operatic
voice could have been Karloff’s—who gave no evidence of such a powerful
baritone in any other film.
In the forty-six Charlie Chan motion pictures (as well as the thirty-nine-episode
television series), Chan has never been played by an Asian actor.
BEST LINE: After a seamstress screams because she saw a strange man in
Madame Lilli’s dressing room, the stage manager, trying to bring order to the
chaotic scene, tells Sergeant Kelly, “You cops would make anybody hysterical. .
. . This opera is going on tonight even if Frankenstein walks in.”
5
BULLITT
1968
TYPE OF FILM: Police

STUDIO: Warner Brothers—Seven Arts
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert E. Relyes
PRODUCER: Philip D. Antoni
DIRECTOR: Peter Yates
SCREENWRITERS: Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner
SOURCE: Mute Witness, novel by Robert Pike (pseud
onym of Robert L. Fish)
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Steve McQueen ......................................................................................Frank Bullitt
Robert Vaughn ......................................................................Walter Chalmers
Jacqueline Bisset .............................................................................Cathy
Don Gordon ...............................................................................Delgetti
Robert Duvall ............................................................................Weissberg
Simon Oakland ......................................................................Captain Bennett
Norman Fell ..........................................................................Captain Baker
Carl Reindel ...............................................................................Stanton
Felice Orlandi ..............................................................................Renick
Pat Renella ............................................................................Johnny Ross
DID YOU KNOW? In the most famous chase scene in movie history, four cars
were used: a pair of Dodge Chargers and a pair of Mustangs (which were owned
by the Ford Motor Company and lent to Warner Brothers as part of a promotional
agreement). The cars were modified for the high speed chase and driven by two
stunt drivers. Both of the Chargers were junked after the filming, as was one of
the Mustangs. The other Mustang, not quite as battered as the other cars, was
purchased by a Warner Brothers employee after the film was completed. Several
years later, the car was in New Jersey and Steve McQueen tried to buy it, but the
owner did not want to sell it and he put it into storage in a barn: It has not been
driven for many years.
6
THE STORY: The ambitious politician, Walter Chalmers, requests Detective
Lieutenant Frank Bullitt to guard Chicago hoodlum Johnny Ross, who has agreed
to testify before a Senate sub-committee on organized crime. Two hoodlums
break into the hotel room where Ross is hiding and shoot him. Ross is rushed to
the hospital but dies, and Bullitt convinces the doctor to keep the death secret
while he sets out to investigate how the Mafia knew where Ross had been se-
questered.
The gangsters chase Bullitt throughout San Francisco until their car crashes
into a gasoline pump and explodes. He soon learns that the gunned-down Ross
was really an impostor and that the real criminal is planning to leave the country.
Bullitt finally catches up with him at the San Francisco airport, where Chalmers
admits that he had sent the police to guard the decoy, but that he wants Ross
taken alive now. Bullitt chases him from a plane just before it is about to take off
and finally catches up with him, shooting him dead as he tries to escape.
***
Bullitt is remembered today mainly for two things: Steve McQueen’s best-
known role, the one with which he is most often associated, and the fabulous
chase scene through the streets and over the hills of San Francisco. Only the
chase scene in The French Connection bettered it, and neither required the
crashes of dozens, or even scores, of cars that inevitably exploded in chase
scenes in the less imaginative pictures that followed.
Director Peter Yates called for his stunt drivers to hit speeds of 70 to 80 miles
per hour in the chase scene, but in the excitement of the moment, they often hit as
high as 110 miles per hour (as did the cars containing the cameras, of course).
While the scene took less than ten minutes in the film, it required three weeks of
shooting.
Yates had wanted to set part of the chase on the Golden Gate Bridge but was
denied permission.
BEST LINE: Chalmers to Bullitt: “We both know how careers are made. Integ-
rity is something you sell the public.”
7
ANATOMY OF A MURDER
1959
TYPE OF FILM: Courtroom

STUDIO: Columbia
PRODUCER: Otto Preminger
DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger
SCREENWRITER: Wendell Mayes
SOURCE: Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver,
pseudonym of John D. Voelker, a
judge
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Stewart ..........................................................................Paul Biegler
Lee Remick ...........................................................................Laura Manion
Ben Gazzara ..............................................................Lieutenant Frederick Manion
George C. Scott .......................................................................Claude Dancer
Arthur O’Connell ...................................................................Parnell McCarthy
Eve Arden ..................................................................................Maida
Kathryn Grant ..........................................................................Mary Pilant
OrsonBean .........................................................................................................Dr. Smith
Russ Brown ..........................................................................Mr. Lemon
Murray Hamilton ..................................................................Alphonse Paquette
Joseph N. Welch .......................................................................Judge Weaver
Brooks West ..........................................................................Mitch Lodwick
DID YOU KNOW? The judge in this compelling courtroom drama did a splendid
job in his role, which actually came fairly easily to him. In real life, he was not an
actor but a judge who played a key role in the famous hearings in which Senator
Joseph McCarthy questioned members of the Hollywood movie-making
community and others before the House Un-American Committee. The author,
John D. Voelker (using the pseudonym Robert Traver), was in real life a judge as
well, in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
8
THE STORY: Lieutenant Frederick Manion is arrested and brought to trial for
killing the bartender he claims beat and raped his wife Laura. Former prosecutor
Paul Biegler reluctantly agrees to defend the arrogant and insolent soldier. The
prosecution, including Claude Dancer, charges that Laura was a woman of easy
virtue who had been having an affair with the murdered man and that Manion
found out about it, beat the truth out of his wife, and then killed her lover.
Biegler’s researcher finds a comparable case from the nineteenth century in
which a man killed his wife’s attacker, citing “an irresistible impulse,” and the man
had been acquitted, so Biegler decides to use the same defense.
His prize witness is the murdered man’s stepdaughter, who testifies that the
dead man had been fond of the young woman and offers physical evidence: a
pair of torn panties that belonged to Laura Manion, missing since the alleged
attack but found among the bar’s laundry, proving that her stepfather had tried to
hide them.
Lieutenant Manion is acquitted but, when Biegler goes to collect his fee at the
trailer where the Manions lived, he finds a note stating that they had “an irresist-
ible impulse” to leave without paying him.
***
Lana Turner had been hired to play Laura Manion but walked off the set after
a few days. Producer/director Otto Preminger claimed she didn’t like the clothes
she’d been given to wear. Turner responded by saying, “I would not walk out of
a picture for something as trivial as a costume. It was simply impossible to deal
with Mr. Preminger’s unpredictable temper.”
Preminger then vowed to take an unknown actress and make her a star, which
he did with Lee Remick.
At the time the film was released, it was extremely shocking for its frequent use
of language rarely spoken in polite company. Words like “panties,” “climax,”
“intercourse,” and “contraceptive” were too strong for Richard Daley, the mayor
of Chicago, who banned its showing in his city until a court order forced him to
allow it.
Anatomy of a Murder was nominated for six Academy Awards in the year in
which Ben-Hur swept most of them. It lost to Ben-Hur for Best Picture, James
Stewart lost to Charlton Heston for Best Actor (though Stewart was named Best
Actor by the New York Film Critics), and both George C. Scott and Arthur
O’Connell lost to Hugh Griffith for Best Supporting Actor.
9
BEST LINE: At the murder trial in which a charge of rape is a major element, the
subject of the alleged victim’s underwear is raised and Judge Weaver asks the
lawyers if another word can be used instead of panties. Claude Dancer, a pros-
ecuting attorney, volunteers that he’d been overseas during the war and learned
a French word for them, but believed the word might be slightly suggestive.
“Most French words are,” says Weaver.
10
THE SPY WHO CAME IN
FROM THE COLD
1965
TYPE OF FILM: Espionage

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Martin Ritt
DIRECTOR: Martin Ritt
SCREENWRITERS: Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper
SOURCE: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, novel by John le
Carré
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Richard Burton .........................................................................Alec Leamas
Claire Bloom .............................................................................Nan Perry
Oskar Werner ..............................................................................Fiedler
Peter Van Eyck ....................................................................Hans-Dieter Mundt
George Voskovec .........................................................East German defense attorney
Sam Wanamaker .............................................................................Peters
Cyril Cusack ...............................................................................Control
Rupert Davies ..........................................................................John Smiley
Michael Hordern .............................................................................Ashe
Robert Hardy ..............................................................................Carlton
Bernard Lee ...............................................................................Patmore
DID YOU KNOW? Although it is perhaps the most influential espionage movie
ever made, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold was a failure at the box office.
Cinematic spying traditionally used such standard features as beautiful women
who turned out to be ruthless double agents, posh surroundings, and international
locales. The lack of all those colorful elements in the film, plus the realistic depiction
of the ordinariness of everyday life as a spy and its commensurate lack of action,
made audiences less than enthusiastic about this cinematic experience. They
made it clear that they preferred the unrealistic but exciting world of James Bond.
11
THE STORY: Alec Leamas, the head of British Intelligence in Germany, is near
retirement when he is sent home to explain why so many of his agents have been
killed. They appear to be the victims of ex-Nazi Hans-Dieter Mundt, now the head
of the East German counterintelligence unit. The British Secret Service, led by
Control, wants to eliminate him.
Leamas, burned out after so many years at the job, lacking family and close
ties, has become a disillusioned drunk. Using that apparent weakness as a good
cover, Leamas is given the assignment of making himself appear ready to defect
so that he can infiltrate the East German organization.
He takes a job in a library to become involved with known Communist Nan
Perry. When he is offered money to tell his secrets to Mundt’s second in com-
mand, the brilliant but devious Fiedler, Leamas accepts. Fiedler, eager to replace
his superior, plans to frame him as a double agent and uses Leamas in his plot.
When a secret tribunal is held and Nan is called as a surprise witness, Leamas
suddenly realizes that the entire purpose of his mission to East Berlin was to set
up Fiedler and strengthen the position of Mundt, who is actually a British double
agent.
Mundt arranges for Leamas to escape over the Wall, but Nan, a security risk,
must be shot. Knowing the life to which he will return, the embittered Leamas
decides that escape is pointless and stays behind the Wall to be shot and killed.
***
The film version of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold was a faithful adapta-
tion of John le Carré’s 1963 novel, which, unlike the film, was an enormous suc-
cess and catapulted the author onto best-seller lists from then on.
Much as The Godfather created a view of the Mafia that was so real that it
seemed the only accurate definition of that world, so, too, did le Carré make his
depiction of the espionage world appear to be the only true one. His inventive
use of language sounded so authentic that it has seeped into common usage,
and terms like circus and control are used knowingly as genuine “spy speak,”
but were created in that context by le Carré.
The success of the book and the fame of the film produced several takeoffs and
spoofs, notably The Spy Who Came (1969), a black-and-white sex film, and The
Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), in which a dog is used as a secret agent.
Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper received Edgar Allan Poe Awards from the Mys-
tery Writers of America for their screenplay.
12
BEST LINE: Fiedler has offered Leamas a woman. Leamas tells him that he
doesn’t need one. Fiedler reminds him that he had one in England—the girl in the
library. Leamas says, “Oh, yes, yes. She was a Communist too. She believed in
free love. At the time it was all I could afford.”
13
DEAD END
1937
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: United Artists
PRODUCER: Samuel Goldwyn
DIRECTOR: William Wyler
SCREENWRITER: Lillian Hellman
SOURCE: Dead End, play by Sidney Kingsley
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Sylvia Sidney .........................................................................Drina Gordon
Joel McCrae ..........................................................................Dave Connell
Humphrey Bogart ..................................................................“Baby Face” Martin
Wendy Barrie .................................................................................Kay
Claire Trevor ..............................................................................Francey
Marjorie Main ..........................................................................Mrs. Martin
Allen Jenkins ...............................................................................Hunk
Billy Halop ..........................................................................Tommy Gordon
Huntz Hall .................................................................................Dippy
Bobby Jordan ...............................................................................Angel
Leo B. Gorcey .................................................................................Spit
Gabriel Dell ..................................................................................T.B.
Bernard Punsley ..............................................................................Milty
DID YOU KNOW? Sidney Kingsley’s play, Dead End, which opened on
Broadway in October of 1936, was a launching pad for the successful Hollywood
careers of more than a dozen stars. The Dead End Kids went on to screen stardom
under that name, as well as the names The East Side Kids, The Little Tough Guys,
and The Bowery Boys. The play also featured Humphrey Bogart and Marjorie
Main, who reprised their roles in the film version, along with Sidney Lumet and
Martin Gable, who went on to become famous directors, and Dan Duryea, a
staple in many films noir and other Hollywood productions for decades. The
screen rights to the play were sold for $165,000—more than the entire production
budgets for many motion pictures of that time.
14
THE STORY: “Baby Face” Martin, a notorious gangster, returns to his boy-
hood neighborhood, New York’s East Side, which is undergoing changes as
some of the dilapidated old tenements are torn down to make way for luxurious
apartment houses. He has come to see his mother and former girlfriend, Francey.
Since his mother, ashamed and angry at his career, rejects him, and Francey has
turned to prostitution, Martin realizes that he cannot escape his own crimes and
settle down as he had hoped.
Dave, an unemployed architect who lives on the same street, dreams of a better
life for himself and the girl he loves, Kay. Drina, Dave’s friend who has been
secretly in love with him for years, struggles to keep her kid brother, Tommy, from
becoming a criminal like his friends. When the gang of street toughs steals a
watch from Philip, one of the wealthier boys, Tommy returns it to the boy’s father,
who nonetheless wants to press charges. Tommy wants to run away and Drina
wants to go with him.
Meanwhile, Martin plots to kidnap Philip for a ransom, but Dave kills Martin
first, earning a large reward that he thinks will buy that better life for him and Kay,
only to learn that she just wants to spend it all on a short binge of high living.
Instead, Dave offers to use his money to pay for a good lawyer to keep Tommy
(whom Drina has convinced to turn himself in) out of prison. As Tommy walks to
the police station, he is accompanied by Drina and Dave.
***
Dead End was a seminal film in that it was the first to show that gangsters and
hoodlums are not necessarily born that way, but that they may be the products of
poverty, broken homes, parental neglect, government indifference, and lack of
education. For the first time, the behavior of criminals was seen not as a genetic
mutation, but as the direct result of external forces. This influential film inspired
many others of its kind, notably Lewis Seiler’s Crime School (1938) and Michael
Curtiz’s Angels With Dirty Faces (1938).
There were several differences between the stage and motion picture versions.
Apparently a bit of toning down was necessary to make the film palatable to the
censors. On stage, for example, Francey has syphilis, but in the movie she is
merely “sick” with a hacking cough. Another difference is that in the stage ver-
sion, the crippled artist becomes Dave’s romantic interest.
15
Four Academy Award nominations went to Dead End: Best Picture, Best Sup-
porting Actress (Claire Trevor), Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction. It
was named Best Picture of the Year by the Film Daily Yearbook.
BEST LINE: Not much credit to the screenwriter, but memorable nonetheless,
is the closing moment as Tommy walks to the police station to face his fate, while
the rest of the Dead End Kids, resigned to their lives in the slums, sing: “If I had
the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly.”
16
THE HOUND OF THE
BASKERVILLES
1939

PRODUCER: Gene Markey
DIRECTOR: Sidney Lanfield
SCREENWRITER: Ernest Pascal
SOURCE: The Hound of the Baskervilles, novel by Arthur Conan
Doyle
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Basil Rathbone ......................................................................Sherlock Holmes
Nigel Bruce .............................................................................Dr. Watson
Richard Greene ..................................................................Sir Henry Baskerville
Wendy Barrie ........................................................................Beryl Stapleton
Lionel Atwill ..........................................................................Dr. Mortimer
John Carradine ............................................................................Barryman
Barlowe Borland ..........................................................................Frankland
Beryl Mercer .........................................................................Mrs. Mortimer
Morton Lowry ........................................................................John Stapleton
DID YOU KNOW? Basil Rathbone—an accomplished stage actor, especially
in Shakespearean roles—played Holmes for the first time in this film, which was
the first (after dozens of screen versions of Holmesian adventures) to be set in
the Victorian Era. Rathbone, with Nigel Bruce as his Watson, went on to play
Holmes in thirteen more full-length films, as well as 275 radio broadcasts and on
the stage. Although he recognized that Holmes had made him famous, Rathbone
also knew that he had, in fact, become typecast and that his career was ruined.
THE STORY: An ancient legend has it that a gigantic phantasmagoric hound
prowls the Great Grimpen Mire, on which Baskerville Hall is located. Young Sir
Henry has recently arrived from Canada to assume possession of the Baskerville
17
estate after the mysterious death of his uncle. Dr. Mortimer, the physician of the
Baskerville family, has come to Sherlock Holmes’s rooms at Baker Street because
he is afraid that Sir Henry will meet a similar end. When attempts on Henry’s life
are made in London, Holmes and Watson head to Dartmoor to prevent another
death.
They arrive at Baskerville Hall and encounter the strange activities of Barryman,
the butler, and his wife, who are caught signaling a strange man on the moor.
When the man’s torn and mutilated body is discovered soon after, it is learned
that he was Mrs. Barryman’s brother, an escaped convict, who had been wearing
Sir Henry’s old clothes. Holmes sets a trap for the killer, saying that he is return-
ing to London, and that night Sir Henry is attacked by a monstrous dog on the
moor, only to be saved when Holmes and Watson shoot it. Everyone returns to
the manor house, where Holmes unmasks the killer—a distant relative of the
Baskervilles intent on killing all who remain in the family, so that he can claim
control of the Baskerville fortune.
***
Arguably the greatest mystery novel ever written, The Hound of the
Baskervilles is also one of the most familiar, and it is a measure of its greatness
that the film bears watching even if the viewer knows the murderer.
Extremely faithful to the book on which it is based and notable for introducing
Rathbone and Bruce to the world as the definitive Holmes and Watson, the film
has a superb cast, with such infamous screen villains as Lionel Atwill and John
Carradine providing nice red herrings. Holmes aficionados have always resented
the handsome new leading man, Richard Greene, being given top billing, and
there is little chemistry between him and the pretty leading lady, Wendy Barrie.
Barrie, incidentally, was a last-minute replacement for Anita Louise, because the
head of foreign production at twentieth Century-Fox convinced the studio that
British audiences would accept nothing less than an all-British cast.
Admittedly a trifle slow-moving at times, the film nonetheless abounds with
atmosphere in spite of the lack of background music—virtually unknown for a
suspense film because of the music’s ability to heighten tension when properly
used.
The magnificent, if creepy, Baskerville Hall was built entirely on Fox’s lot. It had
been used previously for a Charlie Chan movie and was later used in The Man
Who Wouldn’t Die (1942), a Mike Shayne film.
18
BEST LINE: Dr. Mortimer informs Holmes that Sir Charles Baskerville has been
horribly murdered, and that all around the body were footprints. Holmes asks, “A
man’s or a woman’s?” “Mr. Holmes,” answers Mortimer, “they were the foot-
prints of a gigantic hound!”
19
IN A LONELY PLACE
1950
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Columbia
PRODUCER: Robert Lord
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Ray
SCREENWRITER: Andrew Solt; adaptation by Edmund H. North
SOURCE: In a Lonely Place, novel by Dorothy B.
Hughes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Humphrey Bogart .........................................................................Dix Steele
Gloria Grahame .........................................................................Laurel Gray
Frank Lovejoy ..........................................................................Brub Nicolai
Robert Warwick ....................................................................Charlie Waterman
Jeff Donnell ..........................................................................Sylvia Nicolai
Art Smith .............................................................................Mel Lippman
Carl Benton Reid ....................................................................Captain Lochner
Martha Stewart .....................................................................Mildred Atkinson
DID YOU KNOW? Humphrey Bogart bought the rights to Dorothy B. Hughes’
novel, In a Lonely Place, for his own production company, Santana Productions,
because he loved the title and the premise. By the time the story made it to the
screen, virtually nothing was left of the book he loved except the title. Still, his
judgment proved excellent, as director Nicholas Ray helped shape Bogart’s finest,
most complex screen performance to date. Hughes was also the author of Ride
the Pink Horse, which also became a noir classic, adhering more closely to the
published version.
THE STORY: Dix Steele, a screenwriter having trouble getting work because
he doesn’t want to write screenplays that he doesn’t like, and who has taken to
drink and fits of violent behavior, decides to accept the job of adapting a popular
potboiler. He knows he needs to do something, however distasteful, to salvage
his dissolving career (and life). Rather than read the book, he has a hatcheck girl
20
come to his apartment to tell him the story. The next day, she is discovered
murdered and Steele is the prime suspect.
Dix’s alibi is the young actress Laurel Gray, who has recently become his
neighbor. They fall for each other and, inspired by her, he begins to write again.
But his jealousy and the fits of anger that continually erupt frighten her, and she
finally decides to leave him. Enraged, Dix chokes her, stopping just short of
killing her when the telephone rings. It is the police, telling him that he is no
longer a suspect as they have apprehended the real killer.
Laurel is nonetheless filled with terror, horrified at his behavior, and he realizes
it’s over. He simply turns and walks away.
When Dix, recognizing that he has just thrown away his life, walks from Laurel,
the audience cannot know what he is walking toward. Is it suicide, another act of
violence, the bottle, or a shrink? In a Lonely Place ends without the resolution so
closely associated with noir films but only the most optimistic can believe, for
even a moment, that Dix will move on to a happy and fulfilling life.
***
Nicholas Ray, the director, was married to Gloria Grahame while In a Lonely
Place was being made. They had met in 1948 when they were making A Woman’s
Secret, and she apparently did for him in real life what she did for Bogart in the
movie—inspired him to greater art in his work. They had an affair and she got
pregnant, so Ray married her. The relationship soured, however, and Grahame
reportedly spent her wedding night alone in a Las Vegas hotel room while Ray
gambled the night away. Since they both were working in Hollywood, they at-
tempted to maintain a polite, if superficial, professional relationship, but that
became impossible when Grahame, well known for her promiscuity, had an affair
with Ray’s thirteen-year-old son from a previous marriage. (It all sounds like a B
noir film, doesn’t it?)
BEST LINE: Dix Steele, knowing it’s over, to Laurel Gray: “I was born when
you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.”
21
TAXI DRIVER
1976
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Columbia
PRODUCERS: Michael and Julia Phillips
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
SCREENWRITER: Paul Schrader
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert De Niro .........................................................................Travis Bickle
Cybill Shepherd ..............................................................................Betsy
Harvey Keitel ................................................................................Sport
Peter Boyle ................................................................................Wizard
Jodie Foster ...................................................................................Iris
Albert Brooks.. ...............................................................................Tom
Leonard Harris .....................................................................Charles Palantine
Joe Spinell .........................................................................personnel officer
Martin Scorsese ...........................................................................passenger
DID YOU KNOW? Talk about getting into a role! Robert De Niro, who plays
the sociopath Travis Bickle, a New York City cab driver, drove a taxi for twelve-
hour shifts for a month to prepare for the role. The film’s most famous scene, and
one which has lingered in the consciousness of filmgoers for nearly a quarter of
a century, shows De Niro talking, or ranting, to himself in front of a mirror. “You
talkin’ to me? You’re not talkin’ to me! You’re talkin’ to me?” You remember it.
Well, it was entirely ad libbed by De Niro.
Harvey Keitel, who plays the pimp, Sport, is from the same school of acting as
De Niro. He rehearsed with real-life pimps to prepare for his role, and the scene in
which he dances with Iris, the young prostitute, was improvised by Keitel and
Jodie Foster.
THE STORY: Travis Bickle is a twenty-six-year-old Vietnam War vet on whom
the service clearly had an impact. He is a loner, driving a New York City cab on the
22
late night shift, where he is constantly confronted with the worst of society:
hookers, pimps, druggies, and other low-life criminals. A self-styled moralist, he
keeps a diary with his thoughts on this world, growing to hate it more with each
passing night.
He meets a passenger in his cab, the pretty and decent Betsy, a campaign
worker for a Senate nominee, and asks her for a date, which goes badly when he
takes her to a pornographic movie. He later meets Iris, a fourteen year-old prosti-
tute, and tries to convince her to go back home to her parents, without success.
He even fails at getting her to leave her vile, brutal pimp, Sport, with whom she is
in love.
In frustration, he buys guns and ammunition and practices with them as he
sets out to rid the world of the scum that is epitomized by Sport, whom he shoots.
He follows up that murder by going into a seedy hotel and shooting more pimps
and sleazy criminals, making him a vigilante hero to the media and the public.
***
This is clearly not a motion picture for everyone. It is inexhaustibly ugly, vul-
gar, and violent, and it is impossible for just about any of the characters to speak
a simple declarative sentence without peppering it with obscenities. The vio-
lence is omnipresent, whether simmering just below the surface or erupting in
outrageous gore. In fact, Taxi Driver had been given a rating of “X”, which is a
box office death knell, until Scorsese agreed to reduce the level of violence. He
accomplished this mainly by changing the color of the blood from a bright red to
a more muted maroon color.
The famous Mohawk haircut that Bickle wore was not real. The make-up artist
designed a bald skullcap for De Niro and made the hair out of coarse horsehair.
Brian De Palma, no stranger to violent films, was considered for the job of
directing Taxi Driver, but when the producers saw Mean Streets, directed by
Scorsese three years earlier and also starring De Niro, it was agreed that Scorsese
could direct, but only if he was able to get De Niro to play the lead role.
Paul Schrader’s screenplay was a hot property, and several other studios were
interested in making the film. One of them had suggested (and I never joke!) Neil
Diamond for the role of Travis Bickle.
Following in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese has a small
walk-on in each of his films, and so does his mother. In Taxi Driver, Mrs. Scorsese
23
can be seen in the photograph of Iris’s parents that has been hung on Travis’s
wall. Scorsese is the irate husband in Bickle’s taxi.
BEST LINE: Travis Bickle, writing in his diary: “I don’t believe that one should
devote one’s life to morbid self-attention.”
24
THE LAST SEDUCTION
1994
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Noir

STUDIO: PolyGram
PRODUCER: Jonathan Shestack
DIRECTOR: John Dahl
SCREENWRITER: Steve Barancik
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Linda Fiorentino ...........................................................Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy
Peter Berg ..............................................................................Mike Swale
J. T. Walsh ............................................................................Frank Griffith
Bill Nunn ..................................................................................Harlan
Bill Pullman ...........................................................................Clay Gregory
Brian Varady ................................................................................Chris
Dean Norris .................................................................................Shep
Donna Wilson ...............................................................................Stacy
Mik Scriba ...................................................................................Ray
Serena ................................................................................Trish Swale
DID YOU KNOW? In her personal life, Linda Fiorentino may be a lovely woman,
but in movies she has quickly become typecast as an evil monster of such
relentlessly diabolical actions that it is difficult to imagine her as the sweet girl
next door. In The Last Seduction, she calls her attorney and asks him if he’s still
a lawyer, and he responds by asking her if she is still “a self-serving bitch.” Later,
he asks her, “Anyone check you for a heartbeat lately?” And this is someone on
her side! Over the course of her career, Fiorentino played similar roles in Vision
Quest, a wrestling movie that was puerile and worth missing except for her icy
performance, and the highly interesting Martin Scorsese film After Hours, in
which she also plays a nearly nonhuman blackwidow spider, dooming every man
who gets trapped (albeit willingly) in her web.
THE STORY: Bridget Gregory convinces her husband, Clay, a shady doctor,
25
to make a drug deal, which is successful. He takes home $700,000, which she
promptly steals, fleeing from New York City to a small town named Breston, near
Buffalo. Stopping for gas, she hits the local bar and picks up Mike Swale, who is
titillated by her beauty and sophistication, as well as her straight-forward interest
in him sexually—as evidenced when she opens his pants in the crowded bar and
reaches in to see if his boasts about size are warranted.
Bridget decides to stay in Breston. Now using the name Wendy Kroy, she
takes a job in an insurance company and maintains an affair with Mike. He has
fallen for her, even though he is repelled by her cold-bloodedness and by her
scheme for them to murder certain policyholders for large payoffs.
Clay is desperate to get the drug money back and hires Harlan, a private detec-
tive, to find Bridget, which he does. As they head back to New York, she presses
her foot down hard on the gas pedal and aims the car at a pole, crashing into it
head-on and sending Harlan through the windshield; she is saved by an air bag.
Bridget tricks Mike into going to New York with her and sets him up with an
elaborate scheme to kill her husband. As Clay tells Mike more and more about
Bridget, the naive upstater realizes he has been manipulated and refuses to go
through with the murder, so Bridget kills her husband by spraying Mace down
his throat. When Mike is outraged by her, she screams at him to rape her and, as
he does, she surreptitiously dials 911 so that her rape is recorded, as well as her
cries of “You killed my husband.” With Clay dead and Mike arrested, Bridget
heads off to an island paradise with the $700,000 and no hint of a conscience.
Although noir films are notorious for having bad women, never has any of
them remained so one-dimensionally evil. Clearly influenced by James M. Cain
and the other darkest of the dark writers, The Last Seduction provides a show-
case for a diabolical character who never—not for an instant—displays any
moral sense. As a tribute to Cain, Bridget Gregory identifies herself once as Mrs.
Neff (Walter Neff is the man Phyllis Dietrichsonto lures into a plot to kill her
husband in Cain’s Double Indemnity).
The Last Seduction, now regarded as a noir masterpiece, had a tough time of it
at first. Intended for theatrical release, initial response from the studio and theater
owners was so lukewarm that it went directly to cable television, making it ineli-
gible for an Academy Award. When it was released in England, the reaction to it
26
from critics and viewers was so overwhelmingly positive that it crossed the
Atlantic and was shown theatrically with reasonable success.
BEST LINE: Bridget Gregory stops at a bar and orders a Manhattan. When
she is ignored, she yells in the general direction of the bartender, “Who does a
girl have to suck around here to get a drink?”
27
HIGH SIERRA
1941
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Warner Brothers
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis
DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh
SCREENWRITERS: John Huston and W. R.
Burnett
SOURCE: High Sierra, novel by W. R.
Burnett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Ida Lupino ............................................................................Marie Garson
Humphrey Bogart ................................................................Roy “Mad Dog” Earle
Alan Curtis .............................................................................Babe Kozak
Arthur Kennedy .........................................................................Red Hattery
Joan Leslie .................................................................................Velma
Henry Hull .............................................................................Doc Banton
Henry Travers ..........................................................................Pa Goodhue
Barton MacLane .......................................................................Jack Kranmer
Jerome Cowan ..............................................................................Healy
Minna Gombell ......................................................................Mrs. Baughman
Elisabeth Risdon ........................................................................Ma Goodhue
Cornel Wilde .........................................................................Louis Mendoza
Donald MacBride ...........................................................................Big Mac
Paul Harvey ..........................................................................Mr. Baughman
Willie Best ...............................................................................Algernon
DID YOU KNOW? George Raft is largely responsible for Humphrey Bogart’s
rise to stardom. Raft rejected the offer to play the lead in Dead End (1937) because
he felt the gangster’s portrayal was unsympathetic. Bogart took the role in the
memorable film. When the role of Roy Earle was offered to Raft in High Sierra, he
turned it down as well. He felt that his star status ought to give him the chance to
be alive at the end of the film, instead of being gunned down, as had happened to
28
him so many times before. Finally, Raft was offered the role of Sam Spade in The
Maltese Falcon (1941) and turned it down too, fearing that his modest acting
skills would not be helped by a first-time director. The fact is, of course, that the
director was John Huston, one of the greatest directors in the history of Hollywood,
especially for crime movies. Raft was also considered for Casablanca (1943), and
you know who got the part of Rick Blaine. Raft admitted that he didn’t know
much, so he listened to guys who were supposed to know something, like his
agent. He was right about one thing: He didn’t know much. Bogart’s role in High
Sierra propelled him to the top of Hollywood’s list of stars, getting him top billing
in The Maltese Falcon (after being billed behind Ida Lupino in High Sierra).
THE STORY: After serving eight years in prison, Roy Earle is given parole,
bought for him by Big Mac, who wants Earle to help pull a big hotel robbery. As
Roy drives to California, he encounters the Goodhue family on the road, befriends
Pa Goodhue, and falls for his crippled granddaughter, Velma. When he gets to the
mountain resort to hook up with Red and Babe, the other men who will pull off the
robbery, Earle finds that they have brought along a girl named Marie from a dime-
a-dance joint. Earle wants to get rid of her, knowing that the young crooks will
fight over her, but he learns to accept and trust Marie far more than the small-time
hoods.
Earle gives the Goodhues money for Velma’s operation and goes to stick up the
hotel. Earle gets away but the other getaway car crashes, killing Red and Babe
and injuring Mendoza, the inside man who helped set up the job. Earle and Marie
escape with the stolen jewelry. Traveling with them is Pard, the little dog with a
reputation for bringing bad luck with him. A huge manhunt is begun, and Earle is
identified by Mendoza, as his picture is now on every front page along with a
$10,000 reward offered for his capture.
Earle stops to ask Velma, now healed, to marry him, and she turns him down,
saying that she’s in love with a man from back home. Believing he’ll be safer on
his own, Earle sends Marie and Pard to Las Vegas, promising to meet them as
soon as he’s received the money for the fenced jewels, but he is spotted. The
police set up roadblocks, forcing him into the mountains, where he is surrounded.
Marie returns in time to see him shot to death by a sniper. Knowing that Earle
would rather have been killed than return to prison, she is comforted by the
notion that at last Earle is free.
29
***
High Sierra is notable as one of the rare noir films that is not set in the city and
that sees much of its action occur during the day. Also unusual is that the femme
fatale truly loves the main character and remains loyal to him.
Roy Earle was very loosely based on John Dillinger, who is given homage by
being quoted in the film.
In spite of the nickname “Mad Dog,” pinned on him by the newspapers, Earle
was an extremely sympathetic character. While tough and violent with other
crooks, he was extremely gentle and kind to Velma, the woman with whom he fell
in love, and to Marie, the woman who loved him. His eventual undoing may have
been his kindness to the bad-luck dog, Pard—he kept trying to leave him behind
but relented every time, even taking him along on the big heist.
Raoul Walsh directed an excellent remake of the same story in 1949, this time as
a western, with Joel McCrea as the outlaw on the run, and Virginia Mayo and
Dorothy Malone as the two women in his life.
Less successful was the 1955 version, filmed again as a contemporary gang-
ster melodrama, titled I Died a Thousand Times, starring Jack Palance as the
vicious killer who falls for a crippled girl, played by Lori Nelson; Shelley Winters
is the moll.
Other actors who were offered the role after Raft turned it down and before
Bogart accepted it were: Paul Muni, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson.
BEST LINE: Doc Banton to Roy Earle: “Remember what Johnny Dillinger said
about guys like you and him? He said you were just rushing toward death. Yeah,
that’s it. Just rushing toward death.”
30
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
1944
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: International Pictures
PRODUCER: Nunnally Johnson
DIRECTOR: Fritz Lang
SCREENWRITER: Nunnally Johnson
SOURCE: Once Off Guard, novel by J. H. Wallis
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Edward G. Robinson ...........................................................Professor Richard Wanley
Joan Bennett ............................................................................Alice Reed
Dan Duryea .................................................................................Heidt
Raymond Massey ..........................................................District Attorney Frank Lalor
Edmond Breon ........................................................................Dr. Barkstane
Thomas E. Jackson ..................................................................Inspector Jackson
Dorothy Peterson .......................................................................Mrs. Wanley
Arthur Loft ..............................................................Claude Mazard/Frank Howard
DID YOU KNOW? Fritz Lang’s noir masterpiece was one of a pair of bookends
he made a year apart and with essentially the same cast. In The Woman in the
Window, a mild-mannered professor who has unwittingly risked his future for an
innocent evening with a femme fatale is saved in a comic ending when he wakes
to find that the quicksand in which he had figuratively been trapped was all a
dream. He never meant to do wrong, so Lang spared him. In Scarlet Street,
released the following year, a mild-mannered businessman readily succumbs to
the temptations of a cheap but beautiful girl and chases her, even sinking to
stealing money from his job to keep her. When he finds that she loves another
man, he kills her and allows her sleazy boyfriend to be executed for the murder. In
this film, Lang lets the male protagonist suffer because he made the wrong decision.
He did mean to do wrong and wanders the streets endlessly, mad with guilt.
Edward G. Robinson played the milquetoast both times, Joan Bennett convincingly
played the alluring sex object twice, and Dan Duryea excelled at his specialty—
playing a cheap woman-beating hood—in both films.
31
THE STORY: A middle-aged psychology professor, Richard Wanley, sees his
family off for the summer and returns to his club to meet friends, one of whom is
District Attorney Frank Lalor. They discuss the loss of adventure as they’ve
aged and the professor is warned against seeking it. Later, leaving the club, he
stops to stare at the portrait of a beautiful woman in an art gallery window, only
to be surprised when he finds Alice Reed, the model, standing next to him. She
invites him to her apartment to see more sketches of her, and he accepts.
While Wanley and Alice are innocently chatting, her jealous boyfriend, Frank
Howard, enters the apartment and attacks the professor, choking him. Unable to
get Howard to stop, Alice hands the professor a pair of scissors, with which he
stabs his attacker, killing him. Rather than call the police, they decide to dispose
of the body. Wanley drives it into the country and throws it in the underbrush,
scratching his hand on a barbed-wire fence in the process.
Put in charge of the case, the D. A. takes his friend Wanley to the scene of the
crime, and they comment on his scratched hand and the poison ivy nearby, which
also appears on the professor’s hand.
The murdered man had a bodyguard, Heidt, who has figured out that the
murder took place at Alice’s apartment, and shows up, demanding $5,000. She
and the professor raise the money, but when Heidt comes to collect, she tries to
poison him, which infuriates him. He searches her apartment and finds incriminat-
ing evidence which he pockets, demanding another $5,000. Distraught, she calls
to tell the professor of the new demand, and he takes an overdose of sleeping
powder. While sitting on her bed, sobbing in despair, she hears gunshots in the
street and runs out to find that Heidt has been shot to death by the police, who
find the money and other evidence on him. She calls the professor, but he cannot
be roused. Finally his eyes open, and he realizes that he has fallen asleep at the
club and dreamed the entire adventure.
***
Parting from film noir tradition, Alice Reed, though a beautiful and provocative
woman and clearly the mistress of the murdered man, does not lead the male hero
into hopeless desire and ultimate doom. She is as much an innocent victim of
circumstance as Professor Wanley.
The film also diverges from traditional noir sensibility by having a comic end-
32
ing. Only the despised murder victim and the cheap blackmailer die, while the two
stars are able to resume their normal lives.
Fritz Lang’s original version of The Woman in the Window had a very different
ending, much more in keeping with noir expectations. When Heidt tries blackmail
in the earlier version, Professor Wanley kills him and later commits suicide. But
Lang felt the price that Wanley had to pay for merely going home with a woman
was too high and changed the ending to the more upbeat one that was in the final
print. Lang thought it was a good cautionary tale, warning audiences that they
must always be on guard.
The original working title of the motion picture was Once Off Guard. Merle
Oberon had been the original choice to play Alice Reed but was replaced by Joan
Bennett.
BEST LINE: District Attorney Frank Lalor about a female suspect: “She’s got
something on her conscience . . . but what woman hasn’t?”
33
THE KILLING
1956

PRODUCER: James B. Harris
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick
SCREENWRITER: Stanley Kubrick
SOURCE: Clean Break, novel by Lionel White
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Sterling Hayden ........................................................................Johnny Clay
Coleen Gray ..................................................................................Fay
Vince Edwards ..........................................................................Val Cannon
Jay C. Flippen ........................................................................Marvin Unger
Ted Corsia ...........................................................................Randy Kennan
Marie Windsor .........................................................................Sherry Peatty
Elisha Cook, Jr. ........................................................................George Peatty
Timothy Carey .........................................................................Nikki Arane
Joe Sawyer ...........................................................................Mike O’Reilly
Jay Adler ....................................................................................Leo
Joseph Turkel ................................................................................Tiny
DID YOU KNOW? The Killing is the motion picture that made Stanley Kubrick
famous, even though it had a minuscule budget. But this budget must have
seemed positively gigantic to Kubrick after his first two films, Fear and Desire
(1953) and Killer’s Kiss (1955), which each had a budget of $40,000. Even in the
1950s, $40,000 was too tiny a sum to make a high quality picture.
When he made The Killing, Kubrick used the modest budget as a positive
force. The sets, for example, had to be cheaply constructed, so as Kubrick moved
his camera from one room to the next, he showed partitions as he went. Instead of
building the fourth wall, the camera filled that function. The small spaces, crowded
with gang members, reinforced the claustrophobic ambience, and scenes were
shot from every imaginable angle, further illustrating the cramped space in which
the actors (and, by extension, the robbers) had to work.
34
THE STORY: Ex-con Johnny Clay tells his girlfriend, Fay, that he will go straight
after just one more job, a robbery at a racetrack that will net so much money that
he’ll never again have to be at risk. The other gang members are George Peatty, a
cashier at the racetrack, who wants the money for his greedy and demanding
wife, Sherry; Marvin Unger, who is retired and likes the idea of making a big
score; Randy Kennan, a cop who owes money to the syndicate and figures the
cash from the robbery will save his life; Mike O’Reilly, a bartender at the racetrack
who needs money for his sick wife; and Nikki Arane, a brutal killer.
The heist is planned to take place during the seventh race. When Arane shoots
one of the horses on the far turn to create a diversion, the rest of the gang loots
the money room where the handle is kept, stuffing piles of bills into sacks and
tossing them out a window to Kennan, who quickly throws them into his patrol
car and drives away.
Kennan leaves the swag in a motel room for Clay to pick up and split with the
rest of the gang. As they await Clay’s arrival, Val Cannon, Sherry’s secret lover,
pulls out a gun and kills most of them but is himself shot to death in the gun
battle.
George Peatty, badly wounded, manages to get home to Sherry and, realizing
that she had set them all up in order to run away with Cannon, shoots the wife
who betrayed him. Then he falls over dead.
Knowing of the shootout, Clay takes the suitcase full of money and heads for
the airport with Fay. Just as their escape with the fortune seems assured, a clumsy
porter drops the suitcase and it bursts open, scattering the cash along a wind-
swept runway as the police close in to arrest him.
***
This cult classic features all the customary elements of noir films (bad girl who
plays her guy for a sap, multiple murders, hopelessness for all, double-crosses),
but it was also innovative. Audiences today are familiar with some of the techni-
cal feats achieved by Kubrick, but they were new at the time. His management of
time, for example, is stunning, as he uses flashbacks and flashforwards with
alacrity, managing never to confuse viewers. A voice-over helps keep all the
action in context, and the suspense becomes nearly unbearable at times as quick
cutting shows various characters in different locales acting simultaneously.
Given his tiny budget, Stanley Kubrick might have been expected to use un-
35
known actors, but instead he hired familiar faces whose careers had either lan-
guished or had never taken off. Sterling Hayden, Elisha Cook, Jr., Marie Windsor,
and Ted Corsia, among others, had had numerous roles but none ever attained
the stardom that might have been expected.
One of the racehorses at the track is named “Stanley K” for director Stanley
Kubrick.
BEST LINE: As Johnny Clay and his girl friend Fay watch a fortune in cash
being blown away by the wind as the police close in, the gangster watches in
despair and futility, saying, “What’s the difference?”
36
RESERVOIR DOGS
1992

STUDIO: Miramax
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Richard N. Gladstein, Monte Hellman,
Ronna B. Wallace
PRODUCER: Lawrence Bender
CO-PRODUCER: Harvey Keitel
DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino
SCREENWRITER: Quentin Tarantino
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Harvey Keitel ......................................................................Larry/“Mr. White”
Tim Roth .............................................................Freddy Newendyke/“Mr. Orange”
Michael Madsen .................................................................Vic Vega/“Mr. Blonde”
Chris Penn .........................................................................“Nice Guy” Eddie
Steve Buscemi ............................................................................“Mr. Pink”
Lawrence Tierney .........................................................................Joe Cabot
Randy Brooks ............................................................................Holdaway
Kirk Baltz .............................................................................Marvin Nash
Eddie Bunker ............................................................................“Mr. Blue”
Quentin Tarantino .......................................................................“Mr. Brown”
Michael Sottile ..............................................................................Teddy
DID YOU KNOW? Director Quentin Tarantino had wanted James Woods, the
quintessential modern hard-boiled actor, to appear in Reservoir Dogs. He wanted
him so badly that he made five different offers to Woods, all of which were
rejected by his agent, who never told Woods that they were made because the
fees were all dramatically less than Woods was making. Some time after the film
was completed, Tarantino and Woods met, and when the actor learned of the
offers, he was so angry that he fired his agent. Naturally enough, Woods was a
great fan of the film and wanted to know which role Tarantino had had in mind for
him, but Tarantino refused to tell him, explaining only that “the actor who played
37
the role was magnificent.” It appears to be widely known inside Hollywood that
the role Tarantino had in mind for Woods was “Mr. Orange,” which was indeed
played superbly by Tim Roth.
THE STORY: A jewelry robbery organized by Joe Cabot has gone terribly
wrong. A gang of thugs, strangers to each other and using aliases assigned by
Cabot, return to the abandoned warehouse that serves as their headquarters
after the botched heist. “Mr. Orange” has been seriously wounded and driven
back to the rendezvous by “Mr. White,” where they meet up with “Mr. Pink,” who
had escaped with the loot. Pink is convinced that an informant has infiltrated the
gang and suggests to White that they leave Orange to die and split the diamonds
between them. As they debate the issue, “Mr. Blonde” returns with a cop he has
taken hostage.
“Nice Guy” Eddie, Joe Cabot’s son, arrives to try to clean up the mess that the
gang of bunglers has created. He takes White and Pink with him to dispose of the
car used in the robbery, while Blonde remains in the warehouse with the uncon-
scious Orange and the cop, who Blonde tortures by slashing his face and cutting
off his ear. As Blonde pours kerosene on the hostage, Orange wakes up and
shoots Blonde, revealing to the cop that he is an undercover detective. Cabot
shows up, certain that Orange is the traitor, but Orange convinces him that Blonde
admitted that he was a cop, which is why Orange killed him. White returns and
sizes up the situation. He trusts Orange, so he pulls a gun on Cabot as Eddie pulls
a gun on him. They open fire on each other, Eddie and Cabot are killed.
Meanwhile, Pink decides to flee with the diamonds, not realizing that the ware-
house is surrounded by police who have been waiting for Orange’s signals, and
is shot to death, when Orange reveals his true identity to White, White shoots
him and is in turn shot by the police. The only survivor of the warehouse massa-
cre is the young cop who, having also survived the torture, is concerned that his
good looks have been destroyed.
***
This is not a film for everyone. In addition to flat moments, the amount and
degree of violence may be off-putting to all but the most hardened. However, for
all its noir-ish elements and the fact that just about everyone dies, Reservoir
Dogs is filled with original and memorable characters and dialogue that, in its
absurdity, is often hilarious.
38
The jewelry robbery at the core of the picture is never seen. Flashbacks are
used to show what the plan had been and also to show snippets of isolated
incidents to illustrate how badly the plan went awry.
The film, Quentin Tarantino’s first, entirely his idea and his script, was shot on
a very small budget. One money-saving opportunity presented itself when Rob-
ert Kurtzman offered to do the special effects makeup for no fee—on the condi-
tion that Tarantino write a script of Kurtzman’s story. It was filmed in 1996 as
From Dusk Till Dawn, and you may send up a prayer of thanks if you missed it.
If the title seems to make little sense, there’s a good reason. It was inspired by
Au Revoir, Les Enfants, a 1987 French film whose title Tarantino was unable to
pronounce while he was working as a clerk in a video store.
The woman who was shot by Mr. Orange was Tim Roth’s dialogue coach. He
insisted that she play the role because she had been so tough on him that he
wanted to see her killed.
A curiosity: there are no female speaking parts in Reservoir Dogs.
BEST LINE: When Mr. Pink comes into the warehouse, he sees that Mr. Orange
has been shot. He asks him, “Is it bad?” Mr. White looks at Pink and asks, “As
opposed to good?”
39
THE IPCRESS FILE
1965

STUDIO: Universal
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Charles Kasher
PRODUCER: Harry Saltzman
DIRECTOR: Sidney J. Furie
SCREENWRITERS: Bill Canaway and James Doran
SOURCE: The Ipcress File, novel by Len
Deighton
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Michael Caine .........................................................................Harry Palmer
Nigel Green .................................................................................Dalby
Guy Doleman ...........................................................................Major Ross
Sue Lloyd ...................................................................................Jean
Gordon Jackson ...........................................................................Carswell
Aubrey Richards ...........................................................................Radcliffe
Frank Gatliff ...............................................................................Bluejay
Thomas Baptiste ............................................................................Barney
Oliver MacGreevy ......................................................................Housemartin
DID YOU KNOW? The most unlikely producer of The Ipcress File and the
subsequent espionage films made from Len Deighton’s books is Harry Saltzman.
He is also the co-producer of most of the James Bond movies, and is it possible
for two heroes to be more unalike? Bond, handsome and suave, committed to
defending freedom and democracy, especially for England, is well-trained and
eager to take on the most dangerous assignments, no matter how much derring-
do is required. Harry Palmer, on the other hand, is an overweight myopic who
became a spy because he had been caught trafficking in the black market while he
was a sergeant in the British armed forces and he was given the choice of jail or
espionage. His allegiances are not exactly ideological; they are to girls, books,
music, cooking, and Gauloise cigarettes, in roughly that order.
40
The executive producer, Charles Kasher, was a long-time friend of Saltzman’s
and earned his fortune in the 1950s with the Charles Antell line of hair products
(“made with lanolin,” as the commercials said, relentlessly).
THE STORY: When an important scientist is kidnapped and the British Central
Intelligence operative who is guarding him is killed, the agent’s replacement is
the unlikely Harry Palmer, himself a borderline criminal who is transferred from a
desk job to Major Ross’ military division. The scientist is only one of several who
have been kidnapped recently, but he is doubly important because of a valuable
top secret file in his possession, which must not reach the wrong hands.
Palmer locates a deserted warehouse where he and his superior, Carswell, dis-
cover a tape marked Ipcress. Carswell is killed and Palmer is subjected to grueling
and brutal brainwashing, though he manages to survive and escape. He then
calls Dalby, the head of the civil intelligence division, and Ross, head of the
military intelligence division, to the old factory building and confronts them,
knowing one is a traitor. When Dalby is identified as the man who had tried to set
up Palmer, he is shot.
***
The Ipcress File, like all of Len Deighton’s stories about Harry Palmer, is com-
plex and abstruse. Whereas in a James Bond movie the villain is so easily identi-
fied that he might as well be wearing a banner across his chest, Palmer’s foes may
be anyone on either side in what was then the Cold War. Subtlety and deception
drive the stories, with Palmer’s character dominating them.
In Len Deighton’s novels, the protagonist (it would be overly stretching the
concept to call him the hero) is never named. He is an Everyman, with neither
special skills nor the desire to enter the largely boring but frequently dangerous
world of espionage, but who is thrust into it anyway, much like so many of the
characters in Alfred Hitchcock’s films. Thus, the anonymity of a nameless man
suited Deighton’s desire to project that image of ordinariness, though ultimately
he is anything but ordinary, of course.
When it came time to make the film, it was agreed that, while it may work in a
novel, the notion of the central character being unnamed would be too awkward
for a motion picture, so a name had to be created. Michael Caine suggested
“Harry” as the perfect commonplace name, and the producers added “Palmer.”
41
Christopher Plummer had initially been considered for the role of Harry Palmer
but dropped out to star in The Sound of Music (1965).
Of the hundreds, even thousands, of action films made, the star of The Ipcress
File was the first to wear glasses. In real life, Michael Caine is myopic and needs
to wear them.
Two sequels to The Ipcress File were made, both starring Michael Caine. Fu-
neral in Berlin (1966) was directed by Guy Hamilton, who did a far better job as
the director of Goldfinger (1964). The Billion Dollar Brain (1967) was an inco-
herent mishmash directed by Ken Russell, bad enough to kill the series. Well,
almost, but—alas—not quite. Two made-for-cable television films were made in
1997, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St. Petersburg. It is devoutly hoped that
you missed them.
BEST LINE: Harry Palmer comes home unexpectedly early to find his apartment
being searched by a fellow agent, who says, “You’re supposed to be at work.”
Palmer responds, “And you are, of course.”
42
THE KENNEL MURDER CASE
1933

DIRECTOR: Michael Curtiz
SCREENWRITERS: Robert N. Lee and Peter Milne
SOURCE: The Kennel Murder Case, novel by S. S. Van
Dine
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
William Powell ..........................................................................Philo Vance
Mary Astor .............................................................................Hilda Lake
Eugene Pallette .....................................................................Sgt. Ernest Heath
Ralph Morgan .......................................................................Raymond Wrede
Robert McWade .............................................................District Attorney Markham
Helen Vinson ........................................................................Doris Delafield
Jack LaRue ..........................................................................Eduardo Grassi
Paul Cavanagh .................................................................Sir Thomas MacDonald
Robert Barrat ...........................................................................Archer Coe
Frank Conroy ..........................................................................Brisbane Coe
Etienne Girardot ........................................................................Dr. Doremus
James Lee ..................................................................................Liang
DID YOU KNOW? One of the greatest of all film historians, William K. Everson,
in his important book, The Detective in Film (1972), identified three films as the
greatest detective movies ever made: The Kennel Murder Case, The Maltese
Falcon, and Green for Danger. His criteria were that the films bring the same
scrupulous attention as the book to planting fair clues and a cerebral resolution
to the case, while remaining entertaining and fast-paced throughout, and keeping
the ending a surprise until the very last.
THE STORY: When wealthy and heartless Archer Coe is found dead—an
apparent suicide—Philo Vance and New York police sergeant Ernest Heath suspect
murder. They join forces and attempt to sift through the myriad suspects, all of
43
whom had ample reason to wish Coe dead. Hilda Lake, Coe’s ward, hated his tight
control over her money. Sir Thomas MacDonald wanted to marry Hilda and shared
her anger at Coe; further, he blamed Coe for the death of his prize show dog and
threatened vengeance. Raymond Wrede was Coe’s secretary and believed Coe
was all that stood between himself and Hilda, with whom he was in love. Doris
Delafield was Coe’s mistress but was preparing to run away with Eduardo Grassi,
an art dealer; when Coe caught them together, he canceled a big deal with Grassi
and dumped Doris. Liang, Coe’s cook, had helped his employer illegally obtain
ancient Chinese art; when Liang hid evidence, he, too, became a suspect. After
an attempt is made on Sir Thomas’s life, Vance arranges a scenario to prod the
killer into another murder attempt. With the use of a fierce Doberman pinscher
and a carefully constructed miniature house, Vance proves who the murderer was
and how he or she accomplished the apparently impossible crime.
***
There were seventeen full-length feature films about Philo Vance, four of which—
The Canary Murder Case (1929), The Greene Murder Case (1929), The Benson
Murder Case (1930), and The Kennel Murder Case, starred William Powell. Powell
was easily the best Vance, the detective role with which he was most associated
until he began The Thin Man series in 1934. Other Vance portrayals were made by
Basil Rathbone in The Bishop Murder Case (1930), Warren William, a bit more
nondescript in The Dragon Murder Case (1934), Paul Lukas in The Casino Mur-
der Case (1935), and Edmund Lowe in The Garden Murder Case (1936). The
Kennel Murder Case was remade in 1940 as Calling Philo Vance, starring a
lackluster James Stephenson as the detective updated to an American agent
trying to solve the murder of the traitorous Coe.
Warner Brothers was paying Powell the star quality sum of $6,000 a week when
the Depression hit and his pay was reduced to $4,000, making him unhappy
enough to leave the studio. Although his departure was publicized as a desire on
Powell’s part to work as a freelance actor rather than a contract player, the fact is
Warner was happy to see him go, because his box office take did not justify his
large salary demands. Within a few years, the enormous success of It Happened
One Night (1934) and The Thin Man (1934) catapulted him to the top of
Hollywood’s box-office attractions.
44
BEST LINE: The medical examiner, after closely inspecting the corpse, who
had apparently shot himself to death in a locked room, states, “Gentlemen, when
that bullet entered this man’s head, he had been dead for hours.”
45
THE GLASS KEY
1942

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Fred Kohlmar
DIRECTOR: Stuart Heisler
SCREENWRITER: Jonathan Latimer
SOURCE: The Glass Key, novel by Dashiell Hammett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Brian Donlevy ..........................................................................Paul Madvig
Veronica Lake ..........................................................................Janet Henry
Alan Ladd ............................................................................Ed Beaumont
Joseph Calleia ...........................................................................Nick Varna
William Bendix ................................................................................Jeff
Bonita Granville ........................................................................Opal Madvig
Richard Denning .......................................................................Taylor Henry
Frances Gifford ..............................................................................Nurse
Donald MacBride ..............................................................................Farr
Margaret Hayes ......................................................................Eloise Matthews
Moroni Olsen ..........................................................................Ralph Henry
Eddie Marr .................................................................................Rusty
DID YOU KNOW? Alan Ladd, who played Ed Beaumont, and William Bendix,
the actor who plays Jeff, the thug who beats him up, were best friends. They even
lived in houses across the street from each other. The argument that broke up
their friendship for good occurred when Ladd went into the Navy and served on
a base in San Diego. When he complained to his friend Bendix about the difficulties
of military life, Bendix joked that he had no right to complain and that he had it
pretty soft. Ladd didn’t respond, but his wife and agent, Sue Carol, retorted
quickly that Bendix was in no position to talk, as he hadn’t even joined any of the
armed forces. Bendix, who was an asthmatic and ineligible for military duty, stormed
off, and the two actors never spoke again.
46
THE STORY: Paul Madvig, a powerful politician, aids the corrupt Senator
Henry in his bid for reelection, much against the wishes of Ed Beaumont, Madvig’s
loyal aide. When Madvig finally acts in a moral way and closes down the gambling
joint run by a pal of Henry’s, he is framed for the murder of the senator’s son by
the gangster. Although Madvig and Beaumont are competing for the same girl,
the senator’s daughter, Janet, when his boss is arrested for murder, Beaumont
turns detective to find the real killer. After Beaumont is mercilessly beaten by Jeff,
he manages to turn the thug against his boss and the gangster is killed. Beaumont
manages to locate the real killer of Henry’s son and get Madvig freed.
***
The Glass Key is a hybrid between the private eye novels that were popular in
the 1930s and the noir films that had not yet clearly defined their genre. Although
Beaumont works in the manner of the traditional detective, trying to solve the
murder for which his boss has been framed, the normal structure of the detective
story is lacking. In the classic private-eye tale, the detective is presented with a
problem and he seeks the answer to that problem by asking questions and sifting
the truth from the lies he inevitably will be told. When he learns the truth, the
problem is solved and all is right with the world.
In The Glass Key, however, all the characters are morally ambivalent, and, when
Beaumont reveals the identity of the perpetrator, the sense of satisfying closure
that the traditional mystery offers is lacking: The greater criminal—in this case an
intertwined society of crooked officials, gangsters, and all the people who con-
nive to make the entire city corrupt—cannot be arrested and punished.
This is the second version of Dashiell Hammett’s best novel. The first was
produced in 1935, starring George Raft as Ed Beaumont (he was Ned in the
novel), Edward Arnold as Madvig, Claire Dodd as Janet Henry, and Rosalind
Keith as Opal Madvig. Although not as tough and violent as the 1942 version, it,
too, is a first-rate film that can be viewed with pleasure today.
“The Glass Key” is underworld jargon for an invitation that is insincere.
When Hammett lived in San Francisco in 1925, he lived in an apartment on
Eddy Street on which he based Beaumont’s rooms.
Akira Kurosawa identified The Glass Key as the inspiration for his famous film
Yojimbo.
47
BEST LINE: Jeff threatens Beaumont: “I’ve got a little room upstairs that’s too
small for you to fall down in. I can bounce you around off the walls; that way we
won’t be wasting a lot of time while you get up off the floor.”
48
SLEUTH
1972
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

PRODUCER: Morton Gottlieb
DIRECTOR: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
SCREENWRITER: Anthony Shaffer
SOURCE: Sleuth, play by Anthony Shaffer
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Laurence Olivier .......................................................................Andrew Wyke
Michael Caine ...............Milo Tindle/ Inspector Doppler/ the voices of
Detective Sergeant Tarrant and Police
Constable Higgs
DID YOU KNOW? In an attempt to keep secret the fact that only two actors
appear in the entire film, several names are listed in the opening credits, including
Eve Channing, who is then listed as Margo Channing in the closing credits.
Margo Channing, of course, is the name of the famous character played by Bette
Davis in All About Eve, the classic film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1950.
She is supposed to have played Laurence Olivier’s wife, Marguerite, but the
character is never seen except in an idealized painting and a single photograph
on the wall of the mansion. The person seen in that photo is actually Joanne
Woodward.
THE STORY: Milo Tindle, owner of a couple of moderately successful hair
salons in London, is invited to the country estate of Andrew Wyke, the fabulously
successful writer of best-selling detective novels. Wyke makes it clear that he
knows Tindle is having an affair with his wife but, instead of being angry or
pained, is delighted to be rid of her and offers financial help to Tindle so that he’ll
be able to keep the spendthrift Marguerite in the style to which Wyke has allowed
her to become accustomed.
Wyke, inordinately fond of games, the more complex the better, suggests that
Tindle steal Marguerite’s jewels, worth a quarter of a million pounds, and he’ll
49
help Tindle fence them while he, Wyke, collects the insurance money. To make
the theft more interesting, he insists that Tindle wear a disguise, and they settle
on an outrageous clown costume. Tindle follows all of Wyke’s carefully worked
out plans, including using a ladder to sneak through a window and blowing the
safe open with dynamite. Suddenly, the novelist reveals that he has no plans to
give up his wife and that he concocted the scheme so that he could shoot Tindle
as an intruder. In spite of the younger man’s pleas, Wyke holds a handgun to his
head and pulls the trigger.
Soon after, a police inspector arrives to question the wealthy novelist about
Tindle’s disappearance and, searching the premises, finds evidence that the hair-
dresser had been there and met a bad end—Wyke’s claims that he had shot his
rival with a blank notwithstanding. Just as the case against Wyke seems certain,
the policeman reveals himself to be Tindle in disguise.
Although the aging Wyke, close to a heart attack, is relieved to know that he
was merely the victim of the younger man’s trick and that he won’t be arrested for
murder, there is still a surprise in store for him. Tindle tells him that he has mur-
dered Wyke’s mistress, providing enough evidence to convince Wyke that he is
telling the truth, and tells him that he has called for the police to arrive in fifteen
minutes. Four clues have been planted in the house that will prove that Wyke
committed the murder and he must find them, using Tindle’s hints, in order to
save himself.
Wyke’s frantic search unearths the clues, and Tindle tells him it was all a hoax
after all and that his mistress was an ally. The unrelieved pressure has been too
much for the normally rational Wyke, and he grabs Tindle’s gun and shoots him
with it, just as the police sirens are heard and their lights come into view. Just
before he dies, Tindle says, “Tell them it was only a game.”
***
As perhaps the greatest mystery play ever written, Sleuth’s cleverness was
changed hardly at all for its motion picture version by Anthony Shaffer, who
wrote both versions. The twists and turns of plot are rivaled only by Witness For
the Prosecution for the honor of being the most distinguished stage presenta-
tion of a mystery.
At the time of the filming of Sleuth, Sir Laurence Olivier was the only actor ever
named to be a lord, and Michael Caine was nervous about how to address his
costar. Shortly before filming began, Caine unexpectedly received a letter from
Olivier, announcing that “One minute after we meet, I shall call you Michael and
50
you will call me Larry, and that’s how it will remain forever.” In fact, Sir Laurence
Olivier insisted that everyone with whom he worked call him “Larry” throughout
his extraordinary career.
Sleuth was the last film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, whose many other
successes included Dragonwyck (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), A
Letter to Three Wives (1949), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Guys and Dolls
(1955), The Quiet American (1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), and the less
successful Cleopatra (1963).
Director Mankiewicz asked Olivier during a rehearsal if he could think of a way
to make the now-aging actor seem more attractive, and more “literary” while he
was at it. The great actor suggested a simple thin mustache, and it gave him
exactly the look Mankiewicz was seeking.
Sleuth was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and both its
stars, Olivier and Caine, also received nominations for Best Actor, losing to Marlon
Brando’s portrayal of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, which also won as
Best Picture. Anthony Shaffer won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery
Writers of America for his screenplay.
BEST LINE: Inspector Doppler to a smug Wyke: “Is there nothing you would
not consider a game, sir? Duty, work, even marriage?” Wyke replies, “Oh, please,
inspector, don’t include marriage. Sex . . . sex is the game. Marriage is the penalty.”
51
THE GRIFTERS
1990
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/noir

STUDIO: Miramax
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Barbara De Fine
PRODUCERS: Martin Scorsese, Robert A. Harris,
Jim Painter
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
SCREENWRITER: Donald E. Westlake
SOURCE: The Grifters, novel by Jim Thomp
son
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
John Cusack .......................................................Roy Dillon
Anjelica Huston ....................................................Lilly Dillon
Annette Bening ...................................................Myra Langtry
Pat Hingle ........................................................Bobo Justus
J. T. Walsh ..............................................................Cole
Henry Jones ................................................Sims, the desk clerk
Gailard Sartain ..................................................Myra’s landlady
Charles Napier .......................................................Hebbing
DID YOU KNOW? Annette Bening, nominated for an Academy Award for her
role as Myra Langtry, owes the jump-start to her career to Melanie Griffith. Anjelica
Huston had been approached to star in The Grifters and, after thinking about it
for a while, turned it down. Cher, approached next, also passed on the opportunity.
Melanie Griffith took the role of Lilly Dillon but, after about three weeks of work,
left the production. During that three week period, Annette Bening, who had little
screen experience, having been trained as a stage actress, auditioned for the role
of Myra, and it was given to her largely because she resembled Griffith. This was
of great importance for the scene in which Lilly Dillon disguises herself as Myra.
After Griffith quit, Huston was again offered the role and, for whatever reason,
changed her mind and accepted. Although both actresses were superb in the
52
roles, the disguise scene is ludicrous because, quite obviously, Huston and
Bening do not resemble each other in the slightest.
THE STORY: The lives of three con artists—each the same in attitude but
entirely different in style—are inextricably woven together. Lilly Dillon is a
hardened professional whose entire career has been spent working for a
bookmaking syndicate. Her son, Roy, learned the art of the grift from a small-timer
who taught him two things: never take a partner, because then you have to share
the take, and never get involved with the “long con,”—a swindle that is big and
complex—because even if the take is big, so is the risk. Myra Langtry, the sexy
girlfriend of Roy, has worked only the long con with another partner for a decade
and raked in huge sums. She wants to get back into that game and has been
searching for a new partner ever since her old one went insane; she thinks she’s
found him in Roy.
Lilly was very young when Roy was born and she wanted no part of him, so he
left home at the age of seventeen. After eight years of separation, Lilly shows up
unexpectedly and tries to get Roy out of the crooked life but is unable to do so.
When she meets Roy’s girlfriend, she instantly dislikes her for complicated rea-
sons, not the least of which is the undercurrent of sublimated incestuous feel-
ings on the part of both Lilly and Roy.
Roy is in the hospital because of a petty swindle that failed to work, getting him
injured by a bartender who caught him. The young-looking Lilly is at his side
when Myra shows up, and Roy introduces his mother. Myra exclaims, “That’s
impossible!” and Lilly responds, “Not quite.” When Lilly insults her, Myra with-
draws her friendly attitude. “Oh, oh, of course,” she says. “Now that I see you in
the light you’re plenty old enough to be Roy’s mother.”
The mobster for whom Lilly works, Bobo Justus, becomes suspicious that Lilly
may have tried to rip him off and brings her back to his hotel room. He threatens
her with serious injury, but lets her off lightly with a nonetheless vicious warning,
pressing his lighted cigar into her hand.
Myra, having been rebuffed by Roy, is convinced that Lilly is responsible and
learns that, in fact, her “rival” has been stealing from Bobo and informs on her.
Lilly flees with her stolen money. Myra follows her and attempts to strangle her in
her sleep, but Lilly pulls a gun out from under her pillow and shoots her. Dressing
in Myra’s clothes, Lilly goes to her son’s house and tries to steal his money, only
53
to have him catch her and stop her. Desperate to get away from Bobo’s henchmen
with the money, she swings the suitcase full of cash at her son’s head as he is
drinking water and smashes the glass, which cuts an artery in his neck, killing
him. Lilly scoops up the cash, shoves it into the suitcase, and drives away.
***
This noir masterpiece was a critical and commercial success—a surprise to
more than a few people. Although wonderfully acted and with a brilliant screen-
play, it resembled Sea of Love in style and texture. Sea of Love had been released
just a year before The Grifters, and it, too, had a wonderful screenplay by Richard
Price and was sensationally acted by Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino. It sank without
a trace, ignored by audiences, critics, and award-givers, most notably the Acad-
emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Anjelica Huston wasn’t the only person to turn down the film. Donald E.
Westlake had been offered the project and initially rejected it, saying the film was
too gloomy. Director Stephen Frears met with Westlake and tried to convince him
to write the screenplay, because Frears was a fan of Westlake’s noir novels about
the criminal Parker, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Westlake finally
agreed to write the screenplay.
Frears, who is British, was making his first American film and loved that the
Boston Globe had called Jim Thompson’s novel “strong meat.” He wanted to
make a film that wallowed in American English and knew Westlake could give it to
him. If the film is approached as the son’s story, he admitted, it was all gloom and
doom. However, if it is seen as the mother’s story, it could easily be taken as an
uplifting illustration of the price of survival. Both Huston and Westlake were
nominated for Oscars.
The numerous scenes that make a motion picture are, of course, shot out of
sequence, and director Stephen Frears has always maintained that an actor should
never have to appear in a scene after he plays a scene in which he dies. It
psychologically depresses them, sucking the energy out of their performance, he
feels. Since there is a high body count among the leading characters in The
Grifters, the last day of shooting saw virtually everybody of importance die.
In addition to the Academy Award nominations for Stephen Frears (Best Direc-
tor), Anjelica Huston (Best Actress), Annette Bening (Best Supporting Actress),
54
and Donald E. Westlake (Best Adapted Screenplay), numerous other awards
were showered on those connected to the film.
Donald E. Westlake won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers
of America for his screenplay. Anjelica Huston was nominated for a Golden Globe
Award as Best Actress and won the award in that category from the National
Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Times Film Critics. Annette Bening
was nominated for a British Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress and
won the National Society of Film Critics Award.
BEST LINE: Myra, admiringly describing Cole, her former partner in the long
con, to Roy Dillon: “He was so crooked he could eat soup with a corkscrew.”
55
BULLDOG DRUMMOND
1929

PRODUCER: Samuel Goldwyn
DIRECTOR: F. Richard Jones
SCREENWRITERS: Sidney Howard and Wallace Smith
SOURCE: Bulldog Drummond, novel by H. C.
McNeile, and Bulldog Drummond, play
by H. C. McNeile and Gerald Du
Maurier
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Ronald Colman ...................................................Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond
Joan Bennett ...............................................................Phyllis Benton
Lilyan Tashman ....................................................................Irma
Montagu Love ...................................................................Peterson
Lawrence Grant ........................................................Dr. Larkington
Wilson Benge .....................................................................Danny
Claud Allister .............................................................Algy Longworth
Charles Sellon ...............................................................John Travers
Adolph Milar ..................................................................Marcovich
DID YOU KNOW? This was Ronald Colman’s first talking picture. He had
already become a screen idol in silents because of his good looks, but when
audiences heard his unique voice with its perfect diction and unparalleled timing,
they immediately made him one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
THE STORY: Bored with life after World War I and seeking adventure, Captain
Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond places an advertisement in the personals section of
the newspaper. He is drawn to the response of Phyllis Benton, whose uncle, John
Travers, has been taken prisoner and confined to an asylum by the villainous Dr.
Larkington and his associates, a gang of international crooks who are trying to
force the uncle to turn over his fortune to them.
56
Drummond and Phyllis head off to the countryside to rescue the helpless
Travers, only to have Phyllis captured as well. Drummond manages to rescue her
briefly, but then he, too, is captured, though he finally manages to escape and kill
the malevolent Dr. Larkington.
***
Bulldog Drummond was one of the most popular figures in British fiction dur-
ing the 1920s and ’30s. H. C. McNeile, using the pseudonym “Sapper” (British
military argot meaning engineer), wrote Bulldog Drummond, a novel, in 1920. It
had immediate success and was adapted for the stage the following year starring
Sir Gerald Du Maurier in London. The play was then brought to Broadway for a
grand opening, a long run, and a successful touring company. Eleven more
Drummond novels were published during the next seventeen years by McNeile
and, when he died, Gerard Fairlie continued to write about the adventurer until
1954.
The book character is tough and violent, allowing nothing—not the law, not
scruples, not overwhelming odds—to stand in the way of the justice that lax laws
and incompetent police officers are unable to provide. In the motion pictures,
particularly with Colman but also when the role was played by Ralph Richardson,
Ray Milland, John Lodge, and John Howard, he was more urbane and light-
hearted—thoroughly enjoying the sport of it all.
While this was Colman’s first talking film, so, too, was it the first talkie Samuel
Goldwyn produced. He did not use McNeile’s novel as the source for the film but
instead used the stage play because, he reckoned, audiences for a talking picture
would want lots of, well . . . talking.
The film was an immediate smash hit and earned Colman an Academy Award
nomination for Best Actor, one of two nominations he received that year; how-
ever, he lost to George Arliss for his titular role in Disraeli.
There were several silent film versions before the classic 1929 film and eighteen
additional talking pictures, the best by far being the only other one in which
Colman starred, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934). Based on McNeile’s
novel Knock-Out, it costarred Loretta Young as Colman’s love interest (although
Myrna Loy had been sought for the role, which she spurned) and cost more than
a half-million dollars to make—a staggering sum in 1934.
Ian Fleming once admitted that Bulldog Drummond was his inspiration for
James Bond.
57
BEST LINE: Drummond has gone to an inn to meet Phyllis Benton, whose
letter intrigued him because of the danger in which she believed her uncle to be.
As Drummond awaits her arrival, his friend Algy shows up with the intention of
protecting Drummond. “Algy,” Drummond says, “If I’d wanted a bodyguard, I’d
have sent for my maiden aunt.” Algy objects, “Oh, I say. Why not?” Drummond
replies. “She’s more of a man than you are.”
58
THIS GUN FOR HIRE
1942
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Espionage

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Richard M. Blumenthal
DIRECTOR: Frank Tuttle
SCREENWRITERS: Albert Maltz and W. R. Burnett
SOURCE: This Gun for Hire, novel by Graham Greene (U.K.
title: Gun for Sale)
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Veronica Lake ...............................................................Ellen Graham
Robert Preston ..............................................................Michael Crane
Alan Ladd ...................................................................Philip Raven
Laird Cregar ................................................................Willard Gates
Tully Marshall ..............................................................Alvin Brewster
Marc Lawrence ...................................................................Tommy
Pamela Blake .....................................................................Annie
Mikhail Rasumny ..................................................................Slukey
Olin Howlin ................................................................Blair Fletcher
Roger Imhof ...............................................................Senator Burnett
Frank Ferguson ...............................................................Albert Baker
DID YOU KNOW? Sometimes coincidence, good luck, and fortuitous timing
can have a greater impact on the making of a movie star than mere talent. In the
film’s opening credits, Alan Ladd is listed as being introduced to the screen in the
role of Philip Raven, although he had in fact previously appeared in many small
and unmemorable roles. His first bit of unpredictably superb timing was that the
country was ready for noir films as war raged in Europe. Pictures with garrulous,
cheerful leading men and snappy patter certainly continued to be popular, but
there was now a place for silent, damaged, unemotional actors, of which Ladd,
with his flat voice and immobile face, was the perfect archetype.
His second piece of good fortune was in being cast with Veronica Lake, who
59
was as blond and as tiny as he was. When the couple stand next to the very large
Laird Cregar, they look like small children, but when they are alone, they are
perfectly matched. (Actually, when they are running, they seem to be the same
size; when they are standing and talking to each other, Ladd towers over Lake,
undoubtedly because he is standing on a box.)
And wouldn’t his career have been different if the first actor to be considered
for the role, Peter Lorre, had been cast?
Finally, Ladd’s role became not only memorable but hugely influential and
iconographic. As the film’s tough guy, he wore a trench coat, which soon became
standard dress for every hard-boiled movie hero.
THE STORY: Philip Raven, a cold-blooded contract killer, is hired to murder
Albert Baker. Baker is blackmailing the Nitrochemical Corporation, which had
sold a formula for poison gas to the Japanese, who had recently bombed Pearl
Harbor. When Raven arrives to do the job, he finds Baker with his secretary and
shoots them both. Paid with marked bills to do the killing, he realizes that he has
been set up by Willard Gates, an executive with Nitrochemical, and sets out to kill
him and the boss who gave the order.
On the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where the chemical company
is headquartered, Raven meets Ellen Graham, the fiancée of Michael Crane, a
police lieutenant. Ellen, coincidentally hired by Gates to appear in a nightclub he
owns, is working as an undercover agent for Senator Burnett.
When Gates sees them together, he wires the police to meet the train but Raven
escapes with Ellen, whom he has taken hostage. Raven plans to kill Ellen in an old
warehouse because she knows he is a killer, but he is interrupted by workmen and
she escapes. Assuming that Ellen is an accomplice of Raven, Gates abducts her
and also plans to kill her. Raven rescues her and realizing that she is not working
with Gates, he now trusts her. Wanting revenge, Raven plans to kill Gates and his
boss, but Ellen convinces him that it is his patriotic duty to get signed confes-
sions instead.
Raven manages to get into the Nitrochemical building and exacts the signed
confessions before the police break in and shoot him. With his last breath he
looks up at Ellen and asks, “Did I do all right by you?”
***
The plot bears small resemblance to Graham Greene’s novel, which was pub-
60
lished in 1936. In the novel—set in cold, dark, rainy England, rather than the
sunny California of the film—the protagonist is a social outcast with a harelip,
not the handsome, if tightlipped, killer portrayed by Alan Ladd. In Greene’s book,
the victim is a socialist minister, and the hit is paid for by a wealthy industrialist.
In the film, the moneyman is again a businessman, but the reason for the hit is to
avoid blackmail.
What George Orwell described as Greene’s “usual left-wing scenery” is much
in evidence in This Gun for Hire, not surprisingly. Greene, of course, was a
Communist, whose social and political agenda infused all his fiction. The screen-
writers, too, were overt left-wingers, especially Albert Maltz, who was later iden-
tified as one of the “Hollywood Ten.” The evil head of the corporation, shown
clumsily eating milksops, was even cast to physically resemble Henry Ford.
The great critical and commercial success of This Gun for Hire was largely
credited to the pairing of Ladd and Lake, and they starred together again three
more times, in The Glass Key (1942), The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Saigon (1948).
They also made cameo appearances together in Star Spangled Rhythm (1943)
and Duffy’s Tavern (1945).
In 1957, Paramount remade This Gun for Hire, based on Burnett and Maltz’s
screenplay. The remake, titled Short Cut to Hell, starred Robert Ivers and Georgann
Johnson, with James Cagney directing his first and only film. It was also absurdly
remade in 1991 for cable television as a vehicle for Robert Wagner.
BEST LINE: When Willard Gates pays off Raven, the hitman wants assurance
that the bills are all right. Gates is shocked at the notion that he could be distrusted,
but then says he understands because, if there were any problem, Raven couldn’t
very well go to the police. Raven tells him, “I’m my own police.”
61
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
1951
TYPE OF FILM: Suspense

STUDIO: Warner Brothers—First National
PRODUCER: Alfred Hitchcock
DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
SCREENWRITERS: Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde; adaptation
by Whitfield Cook
SOURCE: Strangers On a Train, novel by Patricia Highsmith
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Farley Granger ................................................................Guy Haines
Ruth Roman .................................................................Ann Morton
Robert Walker ..............................................................Bruno Anthony
Laura Elliott ...............................................................Miriam Haines
Leo G. Carroll ..............................................................Senator Morton
Patricia Hitchcock ..........................................................Barbara Morton
Marion Lorne ...............................................................Mrs. Anthony
DID YOU KNOW? Raymond Chandler, who had been nominated for two
Academy Awards for his screenplays, had pretty much decided that Hollywood
was not for him. He was frequently drunk, longing to get back to writing novels,
nursing his dying wife, and contemptuous of the collaborative process.
Nonetheless, he was lured back to screenwriting because he wanted to work for
Hitchcock. He received $2,500 a week with a five-week guarantee to write the
screenplay of Strangers On a Train and had the contractual right to work at
home, forcing Hitchcock to fly from Los Angeles to San Diego and then take a
limousine to La Jolla for meetings with him. In no time, Chandler regretted his
decision, complaining loudly and often about Hitchcock’s willingness to subjugate
story and logic for a dramatic cinematic effect. As the relationship became more
and more strained, Chandler openly defied Hitchcock, asking him, “If you know
exactly what you want, why did you hire me?” It got worse. On one trip to La
62
Jolla, Chandler watched Hitchcock pull up and said loudly, “Look at that fat
bastard trying to get out of the limousine.” When his secretary warned him that
he might be heard (and apparently he was), he replied, “What do I care?” That
was Hitchcock’s last trip to La Jolla, and Chandler was replaced on the project by
Czenzi Ormonde, an assistant to Ben Hecht (who also worked, uncredited, on the
script). After working on only eight screenplays, this was Chandler’s last
involvement with Hollywood.
THE STORY: On a train trip, Guy Haines, a tennis player, meets Bruno Anthony,
a ne’er-do-well who is a fan of his and seems to know a good deal about his life.
As they chat, Guy reveals that he hates his wife, so Bruno amiably suggests that
he will kill her, if Guy will reciprocate by killing his father. If both are strangers to
the people they murder, he reasons, it will be impossible for anyone to suspect
them. Guy rejects the idea, but when Bruno persists, he humors him, saying,
“Sure, sure” just to get away from someone he perceives as an eccentric.
Guy goes to see his wife, bringing money for the divorce lawyer, but she takes
the money and refuses to grant the divorce after all. Enraged Guy calls Ann
Morton, the woman with whom he is in love, and tells her of Miriam’s change of
heart, saying he’d like to strangle her.
Bruno, in his madness, doesn’t realize that Guy has no intention of living up to
what Bruno perceives as an agreement, and he follows Miriam to an amusement
park, where he strangles her. Guy, just returned to Washington, has an alibi,
having met a man on the train who turns out to have been too drunk to remember
meeting him. Since Guy is a prominent athlete and engaged to a senator’s daugh-
ter, the police put an around-the-clock surveillance on him. His behavior be-
comes more and more suspicious to the police and to Ann, as he knows the
identity of the murderer and is being harassed by him to live up to the bargain and
kill his overbearing father.
To bring the situation to an end, Guy goes to Bruno’s house with a gun, sneaks
up to his father’s bedroom, and begins to tell him of his son’s sinister plot, when
Bruno reveals himself to be in his father’s bed. Now outraged, Bruno swears to
implicate Guy by putting his cigarette lighter at the scene of the crime and inform-
ing the police.
63
Guy races through a tennis match to stop Bruno before he can plant the in-
criminating evidence, catching up to him at the amusement park. He chases him
to a merry-go-round that careens out of control, going faster and faster as the
two men fight. When it finally crashes, it crushes Bruno to death and the lighter
is discovered clutched in his hand—proof that he was the killer.
***
After a string of failures, at least by Hitchcock’s standards (The Paradine
Case, 1947; Rope, 1948; Under Capricorn, 1949; and Stage Fright, 1950), Strang-
ers On a Train was a terrific commercial and critical success that ushered in a
dozen years of unabated triumphs. There are scenes of technical virtuosity, such
as: watching Miriam be murdered through her fallen glasses; suspenseful cross-
cutting, as the tennis match is intercut with Bruno’s attempt to retrieve the vital
evidence, Guy’s lighter, from a sewer; and a frantic finale as a huge merry-go-
round spins wildly out of control in a complex scene that was also very danger-
ous to film.
Patricia Highsmith, a young American author, sold the rights to her first novel
for only $7,500. She did not realize the purchaser was a front for Hitchcock, and
resented him for ever after.
The motion picture was remade in 1969 as the incomprehensibly dreadful Once
You Kiss a Stranger and served as the inspiration for Throw Momma from the
Train (1987) with Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal, which isn’t as funny as one
might wish.
Hitchcock Alert: The director has his screen moment struggling with a large
cello case as he boards the train.
BEST LINE: Guy is discussing the murder of his wife with Ann, her sister
Barbara, and her father, Senator Morton. When the senator exclaims, “poor girl,”
young Barbara replies, “She was a tramp.” The senator pompously lectures her,
saying, “She was a human being. And let me remind you that even the most
unworthy of us has a right to life and the pursuit of happiness.” “From what I
hear,” retorts his daughter, “she pursued it in all directions.”
64
A SHOT IN THE DARK
1964
TYPE OF FILM: Detective/Comedy

PRODUCER: Blake Edwards
DIRECTOR: Blake Edwards
SCREENWRITERS: Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty
SOURCE: A Shot in the Dark, play by Harry Kurnitz, and L’idiote,
play by Marcel Achard
Peter Sellers .....................................................Inspector Jacques Clouseau

Elke Sommer .............................................................Maria Gambrelli
George Sanders ............................................................Benjamin Ballon
Herbert Lom .................................................Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus
Tracy Reed ..............................................................Dominique Ballon
Burt Kwouk ........................................................................Kato
Graham Stark ...............................................................Hercule Lajoy
DID YOU KNOW? Although it is a hilarious film, A Shot in the Dark produced
one less-than-hilarious result. As the pratfalling Inspector Jacques Clouseau,
Peter Sellers insisted on performing most of his own stunts, falling repeatedly,
banging into walls and doors, and fighting with his valet in extremely lively
battles. The strain of this relentless activity was largely responsible for Sellers’s
serious heart attack, which stopped him from working for a long time. He did not
take on the rigors of another Pink Panther movie for eleven years.
THE STORY: The famously inept Inspector Jacques Clouseau is accidentally
assigned to a very important murder case—to the shock and dismay of his superior,
Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus. Maria Gambrelli, the parlor maid of the prominent
Benjamin and Dominique Ballon, is the likely suspect in the murder of her lover,
but Clouseau believes her innocent and refuses to arrest her. Dreyfus removes
him from the case and jails Maria, but powerful influences force Clouseau back
onto the case and he immediately has Maria released. She returns to her job and
65
is immediately found, murder weapon in hand, with the dead gardener. Arrested
for murder again, Maria is released by Clouseau, who still believes in her innocence.
Maria next visits a nudist colony, followed by the uncomfortable Clouseau. Another
corpse turns up, but Maria is not arrested. When Lafarge, the Ballons’ butler, is
murdered, Maria is again arrested; still undaunted by the evidence, Clouseau
releases her.
Later, Clouseau takes Maria nightclubbing. Several attempts on his life are
made while he is oblivious to the innocent bystanders who are accidently mur-
dered in his stead. Clouseau becomes convinced that he knows who the real
murderer is and gathers all the suspects in the Ballon house. They take turns
blaming and accusing each other of the murders until the lights go out and all six
make a run for it, piling into Clouseau’s car. It explodes, as a bomb had been
placed in it in yet another attempt to kill him. Only he and Maria survive.
Dreyfus, too, remains alive, but he has gone insane. Hoping to rid himself of
Clouseau, he has repeatedly tried to kill him, causing a rash of deaths that suc-
ceeds only in Clouseau being perceived as a hero.
***
A Shot in the Dark is the sequel to The Pink Panther, made earlier in the same
year and equally hilarious. The comic brilliance of Peter Sellers made the bun-
gling Clouseau one of the most memorable screen detectives of all time, in spite
of the fact that several of the later films were absolutely dreadful.
The third film in the series, Inspector Clouseau, did not come out until 1968,
but it starred Alan Arkin as Clouseau and was a failure, as Sellers had already
been so closely identified with the role.
The fourth film, The Return of the Pink Panther, starred Sellers after an eleven
year hiatus, after which he quickly made the excellent The Pink Panther Strikes
Again (1976), The Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), and the weak The Trail of
the Pink Panther (1982). The ill-conceived The Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
was Blake Edwards’s attempt to keep the series alive in spite of the death of
Sellers. Ted Wass played Clouseau, and David Niven made his last screen ap-
pearance, his voice dubbed by impressionist Rich Little.
If you look closely at A Shot in the Dark, you will see a photograph on the wall
of Clouseau shaking hands with General Charles De Gaulle.
In addition to Sellers’s memorable portrayal, the series is remembered for the
66
cartoon character who appears with the opening credits and went on to have a
life of his own as a Saturday morning cartoon series, and for the very famous and
perfectly appropriate score by Henry Mancini.
BEST LINE: Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, contemplating the havoc caused
by the unimaginably stupid detective: “Give me ten men like Clouseau and I
could destroy the world.”
67
I WAKE UP SCREAMING
1941
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCER: Milton Sperling
DIRECTOR: H. Bruce Humberstone
SCREENWRITER: Dwight Taylor
SOURCE: I Wake Up Screaming, novel by Steve Fisher
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Betty Grable ....................................................................Jill Lynn
Victor Mature ..................................................Frankie Christopher/Botticelli
Carole Landis .................................................................Vicky Lynn
Laird Cregar ...................................................................Ed Cornell
William Gargan ............................................................Jerry McDonald
Alan Mowbray .................................................................Robin Ray
Allyn Joslyn .................................................................Larry Evans
Elisha Cook, Jr. .............................................................Harry Williams
DID YOU KNOW? Even though he was one of the most brilliant of the
Hollywood producers, it seems likely that Darryl F. Zanuck never quite got it
when it came to film noir. In keeping with the style, tone, characters, and plot of
the entire narrative, I Wake Up Screaming had a downbeat ending—pretty much
what one would expect from a dark tale of crime, murder, obsession, and misguided
passion. However, Zanuck insisted that the picture end with a sprightly song-
and-dance number by Hollywood’s hottest star, Betty Grable. The ending was so
ludicrously unsatisfactory that director H. Bruce Humberstone was permitted to
make a change to the version that was released. After seeing what a lousy ending
he had concocted, Zanuck told Humberstone to come up with a different one.
The director pondered for hours and finally fell asleep without a satisfactory
solution, but when he awoke, the entire last scene, in best Hollywood fashion,
was completely laid out in his mind. Zanuck thought it was a brilliant solution but
blasted Humberstone for wasting so much production time with that silly Grable
songfest! Zanuck’s hand, incidentally, was in another major change from the
68
original plan. The film was originally a Hollywood story but Zanuck had forbidden
any of his pictures to be set there, so it was moved to New York, indulging
Zanuck’s affection for the swanky nightclubs, theaters, and apartments of Gotham.
THE STORY: Frankie Christopher, a promoter, goes to a luncheonette with his
friends Robin Ray, a washed-up actor, and Larry Evans, a newspaper columnist,
where they meet Vicky Lynn, a beauty with ambitions to be a star. Impressed with
her, they decide to try to make it happen. Frankie takes her out to a ritzy nightclub,
introduces her around, and she gets two modeling offers that very night. This is
just the beginning, as more offers and publicity come her way, but then she
suddenly tells Frankie that she has accepted an offer to go to Hollywood—
without him. Disappointed and angry, Frankie meets up with Ray and Evans, who
share his feelings because they, too, have fallen for the lovely Vicky.
That night, Vicky is murdered and Frankie is questioned, as is her sister, Jill,
who doesn’t care for Frankie but believes him innocent. She is telling the police
about a sinister man who seemed to be stalking her sister when she spots him; he
turns out to be Ed Cornell, one of the best cops on the force.
The assistant district attorney releases all the suspects because he is con-
vinced that Vicky was murdered by Harry Williams, the switchboard operator at
the hotel where she lived, who disappeared the night she was killed.
Jill, eager to exonerate Frankie while learning who the real killer is, finds out that
Williams was picked up for questioning but released because he said he’d gone
to visit his parents. Cornell believes Jill is withholding evidence, and she is—an
angry letter that Frankie wrote to Vicky when he learned that she was leaving for
Hollywood. Jill goes out with Frankie to learn more and falls for him. Just as she
is about to give him the incriminating letter, Cornell bursts in and arrests Frankie,
but Jill helps him escape. She is arrested briefly, but when released, she and
Frankie become convinced that Williams is the murderer and decide to trap him
into confessing, which he does. Williams admits that he was madly in love with
Vicky, but he tells them that Cornell knows he’s guilty but let him off so that
Frankie would be arrested for the crime. Frankie goes to Cornell’s apartment and
finds the walls covered with pictures of Vicky and a shrine on the mantel.
When Cornell returns, he denounces Frankie for changing Vicky, with whom
he’d been in love and hoped to marry. His plan to frame Frankie gone awry,
Cornell drinks poison and dies.
69
***
I Wake Up Screaming is one of the first noir films and one of several motion
pictures in which Laird Cregar played a crazed killer, obsessive fetishist, or oily
villain, as in such films as This Gun for Hire, The Lodger, and Hangover Square.
In despair over his obesity and unattractiveness, he committed suicide. In 1948,
the beautiful Carole Landis also committed suicide.
Steve Fisher wrote the story for I Wake Up Screaming as a film treatment and
then wrote a novelization of it afterward, so the film is not based on the book, as
is usually stated, but rather the book was planned to coincide with the release of
the film.
The character of Ed Cornell received his last name as an homage to the greatest
of all noir writers, Cornell Woolrich.
I Wake Up Screaming was originally titled Hot Spot and was first released that
way, getting reviews under that title. As studio executives debated about which
title they preferred, the editor of Photoplay magazine, Ernest Heyn, requested
permission to serialize the story as I Wake Up Screaming, and the dilemma was
resolved.
The story was loosely remade in 1953 as Vicki, with Jean Peters in the titular
role, Jeanne Crain as her sister, and Richard Boone as the obsessive detective.
BEST LINE: Detective Ed Cornell is in Jill Lynn’s apartment and sees a picture
on the wall titled “The Garden of Hope”. Jill wonders what would be the good of
living without hope. In a dead voice, the lonely detective responds, “It can be
done.”
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FARGO
1996
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: PolyGram
PRODUCER: Ethan Coen
DIRECTOR: Joel Coen
SCREENWRITERS: Joel and Ethan Coen
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Frances McDormand ......................................................Marge Gunderson
William H. Macy ..........................................................Jerry Lundegaard
Steve Buscemi ..............................................................Carl Showalter
Harve Presnell .............................................................Wade Gustafson
Peter Stormare .............................................................Oscar Grimsrud
John Carroll Lynch ........................................................Norm Gunderson
Kristen Rudrüd ...........................................................Jean Lundegaard
Tony Denman ...........................................................Scotty Lundegaard
James Gaulke ................................................................state trooper
Cliff Rakerd .................................................................Officer Olsen
DID YOU KNOW? The motion picture opens with the stark and unequivocal
statement:
This is a true story.

The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987.
At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed.
Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.
In fact, none of it is true and the Coen brothers made up the statement, just as
they made up the rest of the film. (This is not unlike the preamble to Return of the
Living Dead, which also claimed to be a true story, with not even the names being
changed. The fact that the film was about zombies and the dead returning to life
suggested to many filmgoers that they were witnessing a spoof.)
71
THE STORY: Badly in debt and desperate, car salesman Jerry Lundegaard
hires two crooks, Carl Showalter and Oscar Grimsrud, to kidnap his own wife,
counting on her wealthy father to come up with the ransom demand. He tells the
hoods that he will seek a ransom of $80,000 and that he will pay them half of that,
plus a new car. They agree and drive off. When they are stopped by a patrol car
for not having proper license plates, Grimsrud shoots the trooper in the face,
killing him. As Showalter drags the body off the road, a young couple in a car
happens by and they flee but skid off the icy road. Grimsrud chases them, finds
the overturned car, and shoots them both.
Chief of Police Marge Gunderson is called in the middle of the night and, when
she arrives at the crime scenes, deduces exactly what happened, recognizing that
two men were responsible. “I’ll tell you what. From his footprint he looks like a
big fella,” she says of the shooter. She checks the slain policeman’s log, and finds
the car he stopped had dealer plates, and traces them to the Twin Cities.
Meanwhile, the kidnappers tell Lundegaard they want the whole $80,000 ran-
som because they had to kill people. Lundegaard protests, but not too much, as
he has actually told his father-in-law the ransom demand is $1,000,000. It is his
plan to take the million and deliver $80,000, keeping the rest. The plan goes awry
when his father-in-law, recognizing what a bungler Lundegaard is, insists that he
wants to deliver the money himself. Showalter shoots him dead but is also shot in
the face. When he opens the suitcase, he sees a million dollars and decides to
bury all but $80,000 of it, which he brings back to his partner, who insists they
split the car, one buying out the other’s half. Showalter refuses, saying he got
shot so he’ll take the car, and is shot by Grimsrud, who has killed the kidnapped
woman. He is feeding his partner into a wood chipper when Officer Gunderson
captures him, shooting him in the leg as he attempts to flee.
***
There are many similarities in structure between this relentlessly escalating
botched crime and the first film made by Ethan and Joel Coen, Blood Simple, in
which a bar owner hires a man to kill his wife and lover, only to be killed himself by
the hired gunman. When the body is discovered by the wife’s lover, he believes
she committed the murder and tries to cover it up, with disastrous results.
Frances McDormand, who made her film debut in Blood Simple, won an Oscar
for Best Actress in Fargo, and the Coen brothers won a statue for Best Original
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Screenplay. Nominations went to the film for Best Picture, to Joel Coen for Best
Director, and to William H. Macy for Best Supporting Actor.
BEST LINE: Marge Gunderson has discovered that the two killers had been
with a couple of young prostitutes and she asks them for a description. One
describes the smaller one as “kinda funny lookin’.” Marge asks, “In what way?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “just funny lookin’.” “Can you be any more specific?”
Marge prods. “I can’t really say,” the girl answers. Wanting to be helpful, she
offers, “He wasn’t circumcised.” Marge asks, “Was he funny lookin’ apart from
that?” Unable to further articulate a physical description, the prostitute concludes,
“Like I say, he was funny lookin’. More than most people even,” as her friend
nods in agreement.
73
HARPER
1966

PRODUCERS: Jerry Gershwin and Elliott Kastner
DIRECTOR: Jack Smight
SCREENWRITER: William Goldman
SOURCE: The Moving Target, novel by Ross
Macdonald
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Paul Newman ................................................................Lew Harper
Lauren Bacall ..........................................................Mrs. Elaine Sampson
Julie Harris ..................................................................Betty Fraley
Shelley Winters ..............................................................Fay Estabrook
Robert Wagner ...............................................................Alan Taggert
Janet Leigh .................................................................Susan Harper
Arthur Hill .................................................................Albert Graves
Pamela Tiffin ............................................................Miranda Sampson
Strother Martin ...................................................................Claude
Robert Webber ................................................................Dwight Troy
Harold Gould ..............................................................Sheriff Spanner
DID YOU KNOW? As many mystery readers know, Paul Newman’s titular
character was based on Ross Macdonald’s quintessential American private eye,
Lew Archer. Why was his name changed from Archer to Harper? Newman appears
to be superstitious. He had just had great success as the star of Hud and The
Hustler, and wanted his character’s name to begin with an H again. Because of
those successes, he had enough box-office power to get the change that he
wanted.
THE STORY: At the recommendation of his lawyer friend, Albert Graves, private
investigator Lew Harper is hired by Elaine Sampson to find her husband, whom
she believes is merely off on another fling with a woman. The bitter Elaine, crippled
74
from a fall off a horse many years earlier, tells Harper that she doesn’t want
information so that she can divorce him, she just wants to outlive him. “I only
want to see him in his grave,” she says. “What a terrible thing to say.” Harper
replies, “People in love will say anything.”
While at the estate, he meets Sampson’s sexy young daughter, Miranda, and
his private pilot, Alan Taggert, the handsome (Harper persists in calling him
“Beauty”) love interest of Miranda.
Harper searches the hotel suite that Sampson keeps for his private use and
finds a photograph of a former movie star, Fay Estabrook, who is now an over-
weight drunk. He finds her at the bar where she spends too much time and takes
her home. When she passes out, he searches her apartment, only to be inter-
rupted by a phone call from the drug-using bar singer, Betty Fraley, and a visit
from Dwight Troy, Estabrook’s husband.
He interviews Fraley, and she leads him to a religious cult led by the charlatan
Claude, whose mountain retreat had been a gift from Sampson.
Elaine receives a ransom note for Sampson, and the $500,000 is left at the
designated place where Fraley picks it up. Harper goes to Fraley’s place—where
Troy is torturing her to learn the location of the money—breaks in, and shoots
Troy, who had been operating a Mexican alien smuggling racket with Claude from
the religious retreat. Harper forces Fraley to take him to the tanker where Sampson
has been held captive, only to find the millionaire dead and his friend Graves at
the location.
Fraley tries to escape in Harper’s car but is killed when she loses control of the
speeding car. As they drive back to Sampson’s estate with the ransom money,
Graves admits to being the killer. Harper says he has to turn him in. Graves says
in that case he has to kill his best friend. He can’t pull the trigger, and some doubt
remains whether Harper will ultimately report Graves.
***
Harper is a classic, almost old-fashioned private-eye story, with Newman fill-
ing the role so memorably played by Humphrey Bogart in several films. Even
Lauren Bacall, the widow of the legendary Bogart, was cast in the film, perhaps
intending to help evoke the memory of Bogie as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.
The attractiveness of Lew Archer as the motion-picture detective of the then-
modern era could not be denied. Although it had taken seventeen years to get
75
The Moving Target filmed as Harper, it was a solid box-office success, and talk of
sequels began almost instantly.
The Chill, perhaps Ross Macdonald’s greatest book, was acquired and Newman
was announced for the sequel, with Jack Smight again directing. No suitable
script was forthcoming, however, so the project was dropped. A few years later,
The Drowning Pool, Macdonald’s second novel, was acquired, and a screenplay
was turned in by Tracy Keenan Wynn, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and Walter Hill—a lot
of high-priced talent that produced a mediocre result. Newman again starred, this
time with his wife, Joanne Woodward, who suggested that the locale be moved
from Los Angeles to New Orleans. It was released in 1976 to lukewarm reviews
and attendance in spite of the box office attraction of Newman.
In 1974, NBC telecast The Underground Man, a two-hour pilot starring Peter
Graves as a stone-faced Archer. It was received well enough to warrant a series,
but with Brian Keith replacing Graves. The 1975 series lasted only for seven one-
hour episodes.
William Goldman won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of
America for his screenplay.
BEST LINE: Albert Graves, infatuated with the sexy young Miranda Sampson,
asks Harper to put in a good word for him with her, saying that he’s a nice guy.
“The bottom is loaded with nice people, Albert.” Harper tells him. “Only cream
and bastards rise.”
76
THE FALLEN IDOL
1948

STUDIO: British Lion
PRODUCER: David O. Selznick
DIRECTOR: Carol Reed
SCREENWRITERS: Graham Greene, Lesley Storm, and William
Templeton
SOURCE: “The Basement Room,” short story by Graham
Greene
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Ralph Richardson ..................................................................Baines
Michele Morgan ....................................................................Julie
Bobby Henrey ...................................................................Phillipe
Sonia Dresdel ................................................................Mrs. Baines
Jack Hawkins ..............................................................Detective Lake
Bernard Lee ................................................................Detective Hart
Denis O’Dea ..............................................................Inspector Crowe
Walter Fitzgerald ...............................................................Dr. Fenton
Karel Stepanek ..............................................................First Secretary
Joan Young ..................................................................Mrs. Barrow
Dandy Nichols ..............................................................Mrs. Patterson
DID YOU KNOW? When he got behind the camera for The Fallen Idol, Carol
Reed was most famous for having directed Night Train To Munich (1940) and
Odd Man Out (1947). He then had his greatest success with his next picture, The
Third Man (1949). Indisputably a great director, he was additionally held in
extremely high esteem for his ability to direct children, a tricky business for any
director but a walk in the park for Reed, who had developed a special trick for this
challenge. While child actors are generally able to remember and properly deliver
their lines, they are notorious for missing their cues. Reed got around this by
77
filming the adult actors doing the scene and then shooting a second take with the
child actors as he delivered the cues to them. When the scene was complete, he
simply intercut or dubbed the child’s lines. Reed used this skill to great effect
with Bobby Henrey as Phillipe in The Fallen Idol and again in Oliver! in 1968.
THE STORY: Young Phillipe is left by his father in the care of the family butler,
Baines, whom the boy adores, and Baines’s wife, the housekeeper, whom he does
not. Baines has been having a clandestine affair with Julie, a typist at the embassy
where they all live, but she has decided to end it. Phillipe overhears the
conversation, not quite understanding it, and the information is pried out of him
by the shrewish Mrs. Baines. After a violently jealous argument she subsequently
has with her husband, she accidentally falls down a flight of stairs and dies.
When the police come to investigate, they question Phillipe but he is uncoop-
erative, believing that Baines murdered his wife and wanting to protect him.
Detective Lake persists, recognizing that the boy is withholding information that,
ironically, if revealed would exonerate the butler, Phillipe’s dearest friend.
Although the innocent Baines would prefer to accept blame for the crime and
be sent to the gallows rather than implicate his lover, Julie, the lovely young
woman finally admits she had been in the house that night with Baines and
convinces the boy to stop trying to protect Baines by lying and to tell the truth.
As the police continue to investigate, they discover evidence that convinces
them that Baines has been telling the truth all along and that his wife did indeed
die from an accidental fall. Phillipe, in his enthusiasm for now telling a true story
to the police, inadvertently tells them a story that would again throw suspicion
on the innocent butler, but the police don’t believe him, and Baines and Julie are
free to be together.
***
The film is the polar opposite of the Graham Greene story on which it is based.
In the fictional tale, the butler is guilty of murdering his wife, and the idolizing boy
accidentally provides the police with the evidence they need to arrest him.
Carol Reed was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.
BEST LINE: Baines is returning to the embassy where he works after having
had Julie, the woman he loves, tell him that their affair has to end. Young Phillipe,
78
having intruded on their moment is told that Julie is Baines’s niece. “Funny, isn’t
it,” says Phillipe, “Julie working in the embassy, and all this time she’s your
niece.” “Yes,” Baines replies, “it’s a scream.”
79
IN THE LINE OF FIRE
1993

STUDIO: Castle Rock/Columbia
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Gail Katz, Wolfgang Petersen,
David Valdes
PRODUCER: Jeff Apple
DIRECTOR: Wolfgang Petersen
SCREENWRITER: Jeff Maguire
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Clint Eastwood .............................................................Frank Horrigan
John Malkovich ........................................................“Booth”/Mitch Leary
Rene Russo ...................................................................Lilly Raines
Dylan McDermott .............................................................Al D’Andrea
Gary Cole ......................................................................Bill Watts
Fred Dalton Thompson ........................................................Harry Sargent
John Mahoney .............................................................Sam Campagna
Gregory Alan Williams ..........................................................Matt Wilder
Patrika Darbo ................................................................Pam Magnus
Steve Railsback ..................................................David Coppinger, uncredited
DID YOU KNOW? Decisions about the level of violence shown in the movie
were not easy to make. In the United States, the scene in which Mitch Leary kills
the bank clerk and her roommate by breaking their necks was shown. Although
brief, it is quite explicit and very violent, with a single quick, hard twist clearly
breaking each of the young women’s necks. This was deleted from the film for its
release in the United Kingdom. Actor John Malkovich wanted to go a step further
and kill their dog too, but director Wolfgang Petersen decided that that was
simply too much.
In another chilling moment, as Clint Eastwood is hanging from the top of a
building and Malkovich comes to the edge and offers to save his life, Eastwood
pulls out his gun and holds it up to Malkovich’s face. In an unscripted and
80
unrehearsed bit of ad libbing, Malkovich takes the barrel of the gun into his
mouth. The director liked this improvisation so much it stayed in the final cut.
THE STORY: Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, on the scene in 1963 in
Dallas, failed to protect President Kennedy from an assassin’s bullet. He suddenly
finds himself again in the position of protecting a President, even though he
probably should have retired a long time ago. Still troubled by his perceived
failure three decades earlier, Horrigan compensates by drinking excessively—
and mostly alone, since his wife has left him.
Mitch Leary, a psychopathic former CIA operative, has decided to kill the
President, not because of any philosophical or political position but mainly for
the sport of it, “to punctuate the dreariness,” as he puts it. When he learns that
Horrigan is to be his chief adversary in the cat-and-mouse game, he becomes
excited, calling the agent repeatedly to give him hints and clues and to gloat
about his successes and Horrigan’s failures. His taunts have an effect on Horrigan,
who becomes more and more determined not to lose another President. The
agent must also endure the arrogance of his much younger boss, who wants no
part of Horrigan because he is not as by-the-book as he would prefer.
Also on assignment to protect the President is a young female agent, Lilly
Raines, who has doubts about Horrigan, but soon learns to trust the politically
incorrect dinosaur and falls in love with him. Horrigan’s persistent sleuthing and
reasoned deductions lead him to the killer, just in time to throw himself in front of
the President as Leary fires his homemade handgun. He survives because of a
bulletproof vest, which Leary later chides him for wearing. In their final confron-
tation in an elevator high above Los Angeles, Leary hangs from the edge and
Horrigan offers to save his life, as Leary had saved his earlier, but the egomania-
cal assassin lets go instead, plunging to his doom.
***
Although there is nothing original about a film in which there are two highly
intelligent and well-motivated adversaries—one a vicious, amoral killer and the
other an over-the-hill, drunken law enforcement maverick—it has rarely been
done so well. The tension remains high, and the two primary protagonists, with
wildly divergent styles (the frenzied pathology of John Malkovich and the la-
conic confidence of Clint Eastwood), mesh perfectly.
81
Verisimilitude for the filmed campaign shots was achieved by using actual
scenes from the 1992 Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.
In the scene where Horrigan’s partner is killed, Clint Eastwood actually did
hang from the edge of the building, six stories above the ground, at the age of
sixty three, though he did wear a safety belt—just in case.
For such an expertly filmed and edited motion picture, there is one stunningly
sloppy bit of filmmaking. When Horrigan breaks into Leary’s house, he is seen
smashing the top half of a large window. When he enters, however, he crawls
through the bottom half.
Another slipup occurs when the Secret Service is able to trace a call from Leary
to Horrigan. They discover that he is right across the street in Lafayette Park and
race to catch him. There are, however, no pay telephones in Lafayette Park.
BEST LINE: When agent Lilly Raines asks Frank Horrigan if he has met the
President and the First Lady yet, he replies, “I normally prefer not to get to know
the people I’m protecting.” “Oh yeah—why’s that?” Lilly asks. “Well, you never
know,” Frank replies. “You might decide they’re not worth taking a bullet for.”
82
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
1974

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCERS: John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin
DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
SCREENWRITER: Paul Dehn
SOURCE: Murder on the Orient Express (U.S.
title: Murder on the Calais Coach),
novel by Agatha Christie
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Albert Finney ..............................................................Hercule Poirot
Lauren Bacall ...............................................................Mrs. Hubbard
Martin Balsam ...................................................................Bianchi
Ingrid Bergman .............................................................Greta Ohlsson
Jacqueline Bisset ........................................................Countess Andrenyi
Jean-Pierre Cassel ........................................................Pierre Paul Michel
Sean Connery ...........................................................Colonel Arbuthnot
John Gielgud ....................................................................Beddoes
Wendy Hiller ..........................................................Princess Dragomiroff
Anthony Perkins ..........................................................Hector McQueen
Vanessa Redgrave............................................................Mary Debenham .
Rachel Roberts ..........................................................Hildegarde Schmidt
Richard Widmark .................................................................Ratchett
Michael York ..............................................................Count Andrenyi
Colin Blakely ...................................................................Hardman
George Coulouris ...........................................................Dr. Constantine
DID YOU KNOW? After the Margaret Rutherford (playing Margaret Rutherford,
not Miss Jane Marple) movies, the tepid 1966 remake of And Then There Were
None titled Ten Little Indians, the incoherent The Alphabet Murders (1966), and
the criminally terrible Endless Night (1972), Agatha Christie determined that there
83
would be no more motion pictures made from her books. Only the intervention of
Lord Louis Mountbatten, former Viceroy to India and the uncle of Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, convinced Dame Agatha to allow one more try. Director
Sidney Lumet spared no expense to make a good a film as he could, and the
results paid off. Christie was delighted with it, and it took in $19,000,000 at the box
office, becoming the most successful British picture ever made.
THE STORY: The famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot boards the Orient
Express on the Calais Coach. His fellow passengers are an interesting lot: Ratchett,
an American businessman traveling with his secretary, Hector McQueen, his
butler, Beddoes, and his bodyguard, Hardman; another obnoxious American,
Mrs. Hubbard, who will not stop talking; a British Colonel, Arbuthnot; the Russian
Princess Dragomiroff and her companion, Hildegarde Schmidt; a missionary from
Sweden, Greta Ohlsson; and the Hungarian Count and Countess Andrenyi.
Ratchett is concerned that someone will try to kill him and offers Poirot $15,000
to protect him. Poirot refuses, and that night, Ratchett is murdered in his berth,
stabbed repeatedly. In the morning, Poirot learns that an avalanche has caused a
giant snowdrift on the tracks, stranding the passengers. With no footprints in the
snow, Poirot recognizes that the murderer must be one of the people still in the
Calais Coach.
One by one, and outside the earshot of the others, Poirot interrogates the
passengers, learning from Ratchett’s secretary that his employer had recently
received threatening letters. When Dr. Constantine and the detective go to exam-
ine the body, the doctor tells Poirot that the stab wounds vary greatly, some
deep, some shallow, some administered by the right hand, some by the left and,
finally, that it is possible that Ratchett was already dead when he was stabbed.
Various clues turn up in Ratchett’s state-room, including a piece of charred paper
that Poirot is able to read by burning it again. It bears the words . . . member Little
Daisy Armstrong and Poirot concludes that Ratchett was the kidnapper of the
little American girl who had been held for $200,000 ransom but was then found
dead, making headlines around the world.
As the questioning continues, Poirot learns that several of the passengers had
known Ratchett and several others had had connections to the Armstrong family.
Calling all the suspects together at last, Poirot informs them that no one person
84
among them had killed Ratchett—they all had! Given ample reason, each passen-
ger stabbed the callous killer in turn to avenge the murder of the baby.
***
Agatha Christie based her novel Murder on the Orient Express (in America
titled Murder on the Calais Coach, 1934) on the Lindbergh kidnapping case, in
which Anne and Charles Lindbergh paid a $50,000 ransom only to learn, some
time later, that their baby had been murdered already.
Another plot element—the snowbound train unable to move forward or back—
was also based on a real-life event. Five years before Christie wrote the book, the
Orient Express had just crossed the Turkish border when an avalanche trapped it,
keeping the train snowbound for six days.
Director Sidney Lumet might have been expected to have a difficult time with
so many huge stars (and commensurate egos) on the same set, but that was not
the case. Each of the principals behaved professionally and all were pleased to be
there for their own reasons.
Richard Widmark made no attempt to hide the fact that he took the role because
he was eager to meet the other stars. Sean Connery had been afraid of being
typecast as James Bond, and Lumet had offered him very different roles in The
Hill (1965) and The Offence (1973), so he was happy to pay him back by appear-
ing in a minor role. The others, especially the more mature ones like Ingrid Bergman,
Wendy Hiller, and John Gielgud, enjoyed playing interesting characters without
committing to long shooting schedules or long-run plays.
The premier of the film was held in London and Queen Elizabeth attended.
Indeed, members of the royal family had been regulars on the set, to the delight of
everyone but Vanessa Redgrave, the political radical who disapproved of the
special treatment given to them. She brought her own guest: Gary Healy of the
Workers’ Revolutionary Party.
Raymond Chandler, in his seminal essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” wrote
about Murder on the Orient Express: M. Poirot decides that since nobody on a
certain through sleeper could have done the murder alone, everybody did it
together, breaking the process down into a series of simple operations like
assembling an egg beater. This is the type (of book) that is guaranteed to knock
the keenest mind for a loop. Only a halfwit could guess it.
Numerous Academy Award nominations went to the film, including to Ingrid
85
Bergman, who won for Best Supporting Actress, Albert Finney for Best Actor,
and Paul Dehn for Best Adapted Screenplay.
BEST LINE: Ratchett offers Poirot “big money” to take on the job of protecting
him. Poirot turns down $5,000, then $10,000, and finally $15,000. “I have made
enough money to satisfy both my needs and my caprices,” he tells Ratchett. “I
take only such cases now as interest me and, to be frank, my interest in your case
is . . . dwindling.”
86
CHARADE
1963
TYPE OF FILM: Suspense/Comedy

STUDIO: Universal-International
PRODUCER: Stanley Donen
DIRECTOR: Stanley Donen
SCREENWRITER: Peter Stone
SOURCE: The Unsuspecting Wife, story by Peter Stone and
Marc Behm
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Cary Grant ........................................Peter Joshua/Alexander Dyle/Adam Canfield/
Brian Cruikshank
Audrey Hepburn ....................................................Regina “Reggie” Lambert
Walter Matthau ............................................Hamilton Bartholomew/Carson Dyle
James Coburn ..............................................................Tex Panthollow
George Kennedy ............................................................Herman Scobie
Ned Glass .................................................................Leopold Gideon
Jacques Marin ...............................................................................Inspector Grandpierre
Paul Bonifas .......................................................................Felix
DID YOU KNOW? In addition to being one of the most clever and sophisticated
comic thrillers outside the oeuvre of Alfred Hitchcock, Charade was a career-
saver for several of the principals and a struggle for everyone else.
Cary Grant’s career had been stalled in the early 1940s when he was still in his
thirties, only to be rescued by Hitchcock with such superb suspense films as
Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). But
now it was the 1960s and Grant needed another lifeline, and Charade was it.
Meanwhile, director Stanley Donen, best known for such musicals as Singin’
in the Rain (1952), hadn’t had a big hit since that classic and hadn’t worked at all
in three years. He recognized the excellence of Peter Stone’s script and saw it as
his potential, badly needed smash when it was offered to him by Universal.
87
Meanwhile, Universal was looking for a director who could make successful
Hitchcock-like motion pictures when the master was otherwise engaged. Sophis-
ticated comic suspense films were surefire box-office hits, and having all the eggs
in the Hitchcock basket was too risky. Donen, they hoped, might be their man.
Problem number one: Hitchcock was not at all pleased to think that someone
else would move into his own highly personal sandbox to play and did every-
thing he could think of to undermine Donen.
Problem number two: Grant was starting to look his age and needed lots of
makeup to convince audiences that he would make a good husband—rather than
a father substitute—for Audrey Hepburn.
Problem number three: Stone was rewriting daily as he battled with Donen, a
good director whose background was in musicals and light comedies and who
had no idea how to properly set up the elements in a traditional whodunit and,
moreover, was no fan of the form in the first place.
Problem number four: Hepburn was getting a bit temperamental, demanding
more and more expensive outfits designed for her by Givenchy.
Miraculously, everything came together to make this bright and intelligent film.
THE STORY: Fresh from a skiing trip in the Alps, Reggie Lambert returns to
Paris to find her apartment empty, stripped of every piece of furniture and clothing,
and her husband, Charles, dead. At the funeral, three Americans stop at the
casket and make sure the corpse is really dead by stabbing it with a pin and
holding a mirror to its mouth. The handsome Peter Joshua, whom she met on her
holiday, helps Reggie find a hotel room.
Reggie is called to the U.S. Embassy, where Hamilton Bartholomew informs her
that her husband and four accomplices stole a quarter of a million dollars in gold
during World War II. He asks her help in retrieving the loot and warns her that her
life might be in danger, as another of the crooks, Carson Dyle, had been killed but
the other three were the sinister men who had attended the funeral.
She assures him that she has no idea where the money is and says the same to
the three crooks, who threaten her. She seeks protection with Joshua, who now
tells her that he is Carson Dyle’s brother, Alexander, but when Bartholomew tells
her Dyle had no brother, she confronts him and he admits that he is a thief named
Adam Canfield.
All three of the American crooks are killed and Reggie now believes Joshua, or
88
Dyle, or Canfield, is actually the killer. But he isn’t. He is really a U.S. Treasury
agent named Brian Cruikshank. She then learns that the man passing himself off
as Bartholomew is actually Carson Dyle, who, while in pursuit of Reggie to get
the money, falls through a trap door at the Comedie Francais and plunges to his
death.
After they figure out that the money has been converted into three fabulously
valuable stamps, Reggie says to Cruikshank: “Oh, I love you, Adam . . . Alex . . .
Peter . . . Brian . . . Whatever your name is. Oh, I love you. I hope we have a lot of
boys and can name them all after you.”
***
The plot, with its many twists and turns; the very high class stars, Audrey
Hepburn and Cary Grant; the low-life villains; the wonderful chase scenes and
suspenseful rooftop battle between Brian Cruikshank and Herman Scobie, the
frequent use of comedy to leaven the suspense—all are so reminiscent of an
Alfred Hitchcock motion picture that it is difficult to imagine that anyone else
could have directed it, but clearly Stanley Donen was, this once, the equal to the
master.
Peter Stone won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America
for his screenplay.
The theme song by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer became a huge hit and
was nominated for an Academy Award.
BEST LINE: A friend suggests to Reggie Lambert that she have affairs rather
than get a divorce: “With a rich husband and this year’s clothes, you won’t find
it difficult to make some new friends.” “Look,” Reggie replies, “I admit I came to
Paris to escape American provincial, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for French
traditional.”
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THE BLUE DAHLIA
1946
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: John Houseman
DIRECTOR: George Marshall
SCREENWRITER: Raymond Chandler
SOURCE: Original story by Raymond Chandler
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Alan Ladd ...............................................................Johnny Morrison
Veronica Lake ..............................................................Joyce Harwood
William Bendix .............................................................Buzz Wanchek
Howard da Silva ............................................................Eddie Harwood
Doris Dowling .............................................................Helen Morrison
Tom Powers ...........................................................Captain Hendrickson
Hugh Beaumont ..........................................................George Copeland
Howard Freeman ..................................................................Corelli
Will Wright ...................................................................Dad Navell
Don Costello ........................................................................Leo
DID YOU KNOW? Alan Ladd, a huge star for Paramount, was scheduled to
serve a second hitch in the Navy in three months, and the studio desperately
wanted to make another film with him before his departure. Raymond Chandler,
fresh from his great success as the cowriter of Double Indemnity (for which he
received an Academy Award nomination), had a partially completed novel. John
Houseman read the pages and had the studio buy it and get a contract for Chandler
to write the screenplay. The first half of the script was delivered quickly, and the
studio liked it so much they began filming. New pages began to come very
slowly, and with time running out on Ladd, Chandler appeared to have writer’s
block. He told Houseman that he could continue, but that he needed to write at
home, not in his office, and that he had to be drunk to do it. Houseman hired
nurses and limousines around the clock to be there if Chandler needed help, but
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he delivered the remainder of the script on time and received his second Oscar
nomination, as well as the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of
America.
THE STORY: Johnny Morrison comes home after military service in World
War II to find his drunken wife in the arms of another man at a wild party in his
home in the middle of the afternoon. He breaks up the party, and when she
confesses that their son died because of her drunken driving, he leaves her. The
war hero turns to the two buddies who returned from the war with him, Buzz
Wanchek and George Copeland, and they decide to try to forget the past and
start over. When Johnny’s wife, Helen, is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect,
so he realizes that he must find the killer or else he’ll be arrested and the real killer
will go free. He meets up with the beautiful Joyce Harwood, the wife of the man
with whom his wife was having an affair, and they fall in love. With the help of
Joyce and his two friends, Morrison finds the murderer and forces a confession
out of him.
***
Chandler had conceived an unusual and philosophically perplexing ending.
Johnny’s pal Buzz had a war injury that required a steel plate to be imbedded in
his skull, causing him intermittent memory loss, pain, and blackouts. In Chandler’s
story, Buzz actually killed his friend’s wife but didn’t remember doing it. The
Department of the Navy wouldn’t allow Paramount to release the film with that
ending because it feared that it would reflect badly on the Navy. This decision
forced Chandler to produce just the sort of humdrum ending that Chandler hated
in other people’s detective stories.
The Blue Dahlia is better than the several other noir films that use the similar
motif of returning veterans being punished for their time in the service (Morrison
loses his child, his wife, his home), much as returning convicts are seen as out-
siders. Ironically, when Morrison is perceived to be a murderer, he must flee and
hide from the very people he had fought to protect.
Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake were the perfect noir screen couple—both blond
and beautiful, icy, nearly expressionless. No matter how beautiful she is, and no
matter how tough he is, they both carry a sense of doom with them. The antith-
esis of William Powell and Myrna Loy, it would be difficult to have predicted
happy endings for their film roles—which are unhappily reflected in their per-
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sonal lives. Lake’s career ended after only a decade or so, and Ladd’s did not
flourish after the 1950s. Both died young.
BEST LINE: Johnny Morrison, checking into a hotel room, to the desk clerk.
“You call this dump a hotel?” To which the clerk replies: “That’s what the sign
says. Fresh sheets every day, they tell me.” Morrison counters with, “How often
do they change the fleas?”
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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
1962

STUDIO: Universal
PRODUCER: Alan Pakula
DIRECTOR: Robert Mulligan
SCREENWRITER: Horton Foote
SOURCE: To Kill A Mockingbird, novel by Harper Lee
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gregory Peck ................................................................Atticus Finch
Mary Badham .................................................................Scout Finch
Philip Alford ..................................................................Jem Finch
John Megna ...................................................................Dill Harris
Brock Peters ................................................................Tom Robinson
Robert Duvall ..........................................................Arthur “Boo” Radley
Estelle Evans ...................................................................Calpurnia
Frank Overton .........................Sheriff Heck Tate
Rosemary Murphy .........................................................Maudie Atkinson
Ruth White .................................................................Mrs. Duboses
Paul Fix ....................................................................Judge Taylor
Collin Wilcox ...............................................................Mayella Ewell
James Anderson ................................................................Bob Ewell
DID YOU KNOW? Of the many motion pictures made by Gregory Peck, he
always maintained that To Kill a Mockingbird was his favorite. He liked the
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel so much that he tried to buy the dramatic rights and
quickly agreed when producer Alan Pakula offered him the role of Finch. “I can
honestly say that in twenty years of making movies,” Peck stated, “I never had a
part that came close to being the real me until Atticus Finch.” His own childhood
was very much like those of the children in the film, through whose eyes the story
unfolds. Though his childhood was in Southern California, rather than in the true
South, Peck said that he nonetheless lived “in a small town where we ran around
93
barefooted in the summertime and lived in trees and rolled down the street curled
up in an old rubber tire.” Peck was so deeply taken by the role of Finch that he
once made a full nine-minute speech in a single take; the actors who were playing
jurors broke into applause when he concluded.
THE STORY: In a small, racially divided Alabama town in the summer of 1932,
an incorruptible lawyer, Atticus Finch, raises his two children—Scout, a six-year-
old girl, and Jem, her ten-year-old brother—alone after the death of his wife. A
primary endeavor in their carefree lives and that of their playmates is to get a look
at Boo Radley, the retarded neighbor they have never seen and who, in local
legend, is chained to his bed by his mean father.
Atticus agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a young black man accused of raping
and beating a white girl, Mayella Ewell, creating a hostile environment for his
children by the bigoted youngsters in town. Atticus proves that Tom is innocent
and that the beating occurred at the hands of Mayella’s father when he caught
her making advances to the Negro, but the all-white jury still finds Tom guilty.
Atticus plans to appeal, but before he is able to do so, Tom is killed when he
allegedly tries to escape.
Mayella’s father, seeking revenge against Atticus, attacks Scout and Jem, but
they are saved when a strange man lurking in the woods attacks Ewell and stabs
him to death. Scout is surprised to find Boo Radley standing quietly behind the
door of her bedroom as her injured brother is attended by a doctor, and she
identifies Radley as her protector. The sheriff, understanding the situation and
sensitive to Boo’s fragile mental state, decides to announce that Ewell fell on his
own knife, so no trial will be necessary.
***
Harper Lee’s only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was semiautobiographical.
She grew up in a small southern town that had its racial problems, wrote sensi-
tively about them, and saw them converted to the screen by Horton Foote, also
a southern writer. Lee was that rare author whose novel had been made into a film
who was able to say, “I am a happy author. They have made my story into a
beautiful and moving motion picture. I am very proud and grateful.” Foote won
an Academy Award for his excellent screenplay.
The character of Dill, a schoolmate of Jem Finch, was based on the young
Truman Capote, who had been a friend of Harper Lee while they were growing up.
94
It is known, too, that Capote made major contributions to the writing of the
book.
The narration is made by an adult Scout Finch, whose voice belongs to Kim
Stanley.
Boo Radley is played by Robert Duvall in his screen debut.
Although Lawrence of Arabia swept most of the 1962 Academy Awards, Gre-
gory Peck won an Oscar for Best Actor. To Kill a Mockingbird was nominated
for Best Picture, Robert Mulligan was nominated for Best Director, and Mary
Badham, who had never acted before, was nominated for Best Supporting Ac-
tress at the age of nine.
BEST LINE: Sheriff Heck Tate explaining to Atticus Finch how he is going to
handle the death of the man who tried to harm his children, Scout and Jem: “Bob
Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself. There’s a black man dead for no reason.
Now the man responsible for it is dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr.
Finch.”
95
KISS ME DEADLY
1955
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Victor Savile
PRODUCER: Robert Aldrich
DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
SCREENWRITER: A. E. Bezzerides
SOURCE: Kiss Me, Deadly, novel by Mickey
Spillane
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Ralph Meeker ..............................................................Mike Hammer
Albert Dekker .................................................................Dr. Soberin
Paul Stewart ..................................................................Carl Evello
Cloris Leachman ...........................................................Christina Bailey
Wesley Addy ................................................................Pat Chambers
Marian Carr ......................................................................Friday
Maxine Cooper....................................................................Velda
Gaby Rodgers .......................................................Gabrielle/Lily Carver.
Nick Dennis .......................................................................Nick
Juano Hernandez .................................................Eddie Yeager
DID YOU KNOW? When Kiss Me Deadly was filmed, Mickey Spillane, the
author of the book on which it was based, was the most successful writer in the
world. By the 1960s, his books had sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide, and
by the 1970s, a survey of the best-selling fiction of the twentieth century showed
seven of the ten top sellers of all time were written by Spillane (The Godfather
topped the list).
The liberal media loathed Spillane and his work, and one critic asked him his
opinion of a readership that would put him in such a rarefied position. Spillane
warned him that, if the critic didn’t watch out, he’d write three more books.
The motion pictures made from those books were another matter. United Art-
96
ists, seeing the record-breaking sales of Spillane’s novels, decided to capitalize
on this extraordinary popularity and made a four-film contract. I, the Jury (1953),
the first book, was also the first film, starring Biff Elliot as Spillane’s hero, Mike
Hammer. It was made in 3-D but, instead of being a box office smash as antici-
pated, grossed a respectable but unexciting $1,299,000.
The second and easily the best of the Mike Hammer films was Kiss Me Deadly,
which grossed only $726,000—a failure.
The third, My Gun Is Quick (1957), starred Robert Bray as Hammer and had a
U.S. gross of only $308,000—a disaster.
Finally, in 1963, Spillane himself played the tough Hammer in The Girl Hunters,
doing a better job of it than most would have expected. There was a lot of public-
ity, but not much box office. The gross of My Gun Is Quick was not regarded
warmly by United Artists, and they did not sign up any more Spillane films.
THE STORY: Driving along a dark, deserted road, Mike Hammer nearly hits
Christina, a terrified blonde who is running barefoot down the middle of it. He
picks her up, and soon his car is forced off the road and some hoods knock him
out and torture the girl with pliers, eventually killing her. Her body and Hammer
are put back in his car and pushed off a cliff. He survives and vows to find out
who she was and why she was murdered.
His curiosity becomes inflamed when the FBI warns him to drop his investiga-
tions, and Hammer finds a gangster, Carl Evello, who is ostensibly in charge of
the operation but who clearly has a powerful boss. In an attempt to get Hammer
to lay off, the gangsters kill his mechanic and friend by dropping a car on him,
crushing him, and kidnapping his secretary, Velda.
Hammer deduces that the murdered blonde had swallowed a key that may be at
the center of the case and convinces a morgue attendant to get it for him. Hammer
uses the key to open a locker with a box inside, and when he opens the box, a
strong, eerie light emanates from it, burning his hand.
Christina’s roommate, Lily Carver, manages to get the box and takes it to Dr.
Soberin, the brains behind the operation. Hammer traces them to a beach house
where Velda has been held hostage and where Lily insists that they open the box.
Soberin explains that the nuclear material, recently stolen from Los Alamos to
be sold to a foreign power, is too dangerous, so she shoots him dead and
wounds Hammer. Just as Mike and Velda flee the little cottage, Lily opens the
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box, the intense heat causing her to burst into flame and the house to ex-
plode.
***
A violent and exciting film, among the last of the films noir, Kiss Me Deadly
became a major influence on French New Wave directors, fond as they are of the
darkest side of mankind and relentlessly attracted to nihilism. Although it was
not a box office success and was largely unloved by movie reviewers of the day,
it has grown in stature over the years and is today a very large cult favorite.
Cloris Leachman made her film debut in Kiss Me Deadly as Christina Bailey, the
escapeé from an insane asylum.
Much like D.O.A., Kiss Me Deadly plays to the audience’s fear of atomic power.
No layperson knew how it worked (and certainly neither film provided any factual
insight), but they knew they were afraid of it, which added an extra dose of terror
to both noir classics.
The high level of violence, which pushed noir film elements to extremes never
seen before, assured negative reviews in the view of the film’s producer, Robert
Aldrich. In an attempt to counteract those impending slams, he defended the film
in a long article written for The New York Herald-Tribune. Ironically, while it was
regarded as just another B picture when it opened in the United States, it was so
enthusiastically received in France that it made Aldrich’s reputation in Europe.
Francois Truffaut, among others, thought it one of the greatest American films of
all time.
BEST LINE: Mike Hammer picks up Christina Bailey, who was running terrified
down the road, and asks her, “What’s the matter? Were you out with a guy who
thought no was a three-letter word?”
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THE PETRIFIED FOREST
1936
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

DIRECTOR: Archie Mayo
SCREENWRITERS: Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves
SOURCE: The Petrified Forest, play by Robert
E. Sherwood
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Leslie Howard ................................................................Alan Squire
Humphrey Bogart ............................................................Duke Mantee
Bette Davis ...............................................................Gabrielle Maple
Dick Foran ...............................................................Boze Hertzlinger
Genevieve Tobin ............................................................Edith Chisolm
Charley Grapewin ............................................................Gramp Maple
Porter Hall ..................................................................Jason Maple
Joseph Sawyer ....................................................................Jackie
Paul Harvey ..................................................................Mr. Chisolm
DID YOU KNOW? Robert E. Sherwood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright,
wrote The Petrified Forest as a play, which became a hit on Broadway starring
Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart. When Howard was asked to star in the
screen version, he accepted the role only on condition that Bogart, then a stage
actor and a player mainly in B movies, be hired to again play Duke Mantee.
THE STORY: Alan Squire, a suicidal intellectual, is hitchhiking across the
Arizona desert when he happens on the run-down Black Mesa Bar-B-Q. Were he
to ask where he is, someone could reasonably tell him that he is in the heart of
nowhere. Here he meets a pretty young idealist, Gaby Maple, who dreams of
escaping the desolate gas station to go to France, where her mother still lives.
They fall in love immediately, but the idyll is ended when a brutal killer, Duke
Mantee, and his gang, running for the Mexican border, use the restaurant as their
99
hideout. Mantee holds a small group of travelers and residents captive while
waiting for the rest of his gang, especially Daisy, his girlfriend. The philosophic
Squire spurs the “autobiographical impulse,” and the people reveal their true
feelings and hidden truths. Squire makes a deal with Mantee: Squire will sign
over his life-insurance policy to Gaby if the gangster will kill him before he leaves,
so that the girl will be able to escape her squalid life and find herself in France.
***
There is no doubting that the original form of The Petrified Forest was as a
stage play, since the film is essentially confined to one set and has far more talk
than action. Indeed, until the final shootout, there is no action. But it’s a beauti-
fully written play that eloquently makes a case for individualism.
Squire, for all his wordiness, never appears pedantic. Mantee, on the other
hand, a man of action rather than thought, looks menacing but does not behave
at all like the brutal killer he is reputed to be. When a rather thick young football
player who is enamored of Gaby grabs a rifle, Mantee shoots him in the hand
rather than killing him on the spot. When the restaurant is surrounded, he yells at
his captives to get on the floor for their safety. He even has trouble living up to
his bargain with Squire, finally shooting him only when the suicidal young man
bars the door to Mantee’s escape.
Two endings were shot, but the studio decided to remain true to the play and
allow the hero to die.
A weak remake titled Escape in the Desert was made in 1945, without the
superb writing and acting of the original. It starred Philip Dorn, Helmut Dantine,
Jean Sullivan, and Alan Hale. In 1955, a television version starred Humphrey
Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
The essential plot structure of a group of hostages held by gangsters is used
equally effectively in Key Largo (1948) and The Desperate Hours (1955), both of
which also starred Bogart.
BEST LINE: When Alan Squire asks Duke Mantee to talk about his life, Mantee
tells him that most of it has been in prison, and “it looks like I’ll spend the rest of
my life dead.”
100
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
1950
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
PRODUCER: Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
DIRECTOR: John Huston
SCREENWRITERS: Ben Maddow and John Huston
SOURCE: The Asphalt Jungle, novel by W. R.
Burnett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Sterling Hayden ..............................................................Dix Handley
Louis Calhern .........................................................Alonzo D. Emmerich
Jean Hagen .................................................................Doll Conovan
James Whitmore ...............................................................Gus Ninissi
Sam Jaffe .......................................................Doc Erwin Riedenschneider
Marilyn Monroe ............................................................Angela Phinlay
Marc Lawrence ....................................................................Cobby
John McIntire ....................................................Police Commissioner Hardy
Barry Kelley ............................................................Lieutenant Ditrich
Anthony Caruso .............................................................Louis Ciavelli
DID YOU KNOW? Louis B. Mayer, then the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
hated The Asphalt Jungle. Director John Huston, collaborating on the screenplay
with Ben Maddow, had contrived to make his gangsters sympathetic. Unlike
earlier gangster films, in which the hoodlums were played broadly and one-
dimensionally as ruthless or psychopathic thugs, the gang involved in the big
heist in this influential film was composed of fairly commonplace men with fears
and dreams and families, much like ordinary people. Mayer despised the liberal
portrayal of the bad guys, saying that it was “full of nasty, ugly people doing
nasty, ugly things. I wouldn’t walk across the room to see something like that.”
The film was extremely successful, however, and Mayer’s days as head of the
giant studio were numbered.
101
THE STORY: Master criminal Doc Riedenschneider is released from prison
and immediately heads to Alonzo Emmerich, a corrupt lawyer, to seek financing
for a jewel robbery he meticulously planned while behind bars. Emmerich agrees
to come up with the necessary $50,000 and will also fence the jewelry after the
robbery. Doc then puts together a team to pull off the caper, bringing in Cobby, a
bookie who actually puts up the cash promised by Emmerich; Dix Handley, the
tough guy who just wants to go back home to Kentucky and live on a horse farm;
Louis Ciavelli, the professional safecracker; and Gus Ninissi, the cat-loving hunch-
back who will serve as the driver.
In a wonderfully timed and executed heist, the gang succeeds, only to have the
night watchman come across them and shoot Ciavelli, whom Ninissi drives home
to die.
When a corrupt cop, Lieutenant Ditrich, suspects Cobby has been involved,
he beats the truth out of him, and the bookie names his accomplices. Handley and
Riedenschneider go to Emmerich with the purloined jewels to get their money,
but the lawyer tries to double-cross them with the aid of his armed thug, who
shoots Handley as he is himself shot dead.
Handley flees with some cash and tells Riedenschneider to escape quickly.
The police show up at the apartment of Emmerich, who kills himself, and then
Ninissi is arrested. Doc Riedenschneider hires a taxi to take him to Cleveland,
stopping at a road-side café where he becomes entranced with watching a sexy
young girl dance. He feeds nickels to the jukebox, and when he finally pulls
himself away, the police have caught up with him. A couple of minutes—as long
as it takes to play a phonograph record—he notes sadly have cost him his
freedom. The wounded Handley drives furiously to reach Kentucky and arrives
just in time to die, lying in the field of his dreams.
***
This enormously influential film, the first to break with the traditional gangster
film in which the characters were largely stereotypes, was also the first to show a
caper being planned and, in a long eleven-minute sequence, carried out. It served
as the model for scores of caper films that followed it during the next half century.
In the W. R. Burnett novel on which the film was based, the story is told from
the point of view of the police. For the film, director John Huston had his screen-
writer, Ben Maddow, innovatively retell the tale from the novel perspective of the
102
robbers. It has been reported that Huston hired real-life safecrackers as consult-
ants to be certain the heist scene was accurate.
Lola Albright had been John Huston’s first choice to play the small but impor-
tant role of Angela Phinlay, Emmerich’s “niece,” but she was unavailable and the
largely unknown Marilyn Monroe was cast instead.
There have been three remakes of The Asphalt Jungle. In 1958, it was set in the
American West and titled The Badlanders, starring Alan Ladd and Ernest
Borgnine. In 1963, it became a British production as Cairo, starring George Sand-
ers and Richard Johnson. Finally, in 1972 it was made with an all-black cast as
Cool Breeze, starring Thalmus Rasulala and Judy Pace.
Academy Award nominations went to John Huston for Best Director, Sam Jaffe
for Best Supporting Actor, and Huston and Ben Maddow for Best Screenplay.
BEST LINE: “Experience has taught me never to trust a policeman,” says the
cynical mastermind behind the big robbery, Doc Riedenschneider. “Just when
you think he’s all right, he turns legit.”
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IN COLD BLOOD
1967
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Columbia
PRODUCER: Richard Brooks
DIRECTOR: Richard Brooks
SCREENWRITER: Richard Brooks
SOURCE: In Cold Blood, a true but fictionalized book by
Truman Capote
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Blake .................................................................Perry Smith
Scott Wilson ................................................................Dick Hickock
John Forsythe ...............................................................Alvin Dewey
Paul Stewart ....................................................................Reporter
Gerald S. O’Loughlin ...........................................................Harold Nye
Jeff Corey ..................................................................Mr. Hitchcock
John Gallanbet ................................................................Roy Church
James Flavin ..............................................................Clarence Duntz
Charles McGraw ................................................................Tex Smith
James Lantz ..............................................................Officer Rohleder
Will Geer .....................................................................Prosecutor
DID YOU KNOW? Director Richard Brooks made every effort for the
authenticity that a docudrama such as In Cold Blood requires. He took the crew
to all the actual locations in Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Mexico, and
Holcomb, Kansas, including the Clutter house, where the four murders were
committed. Nancy Clutter’s horse Babe was used in several scenes. Brooks also
filmed in the real-life courtroom in which the two murderers were tried, using six of
the actual jurors who sat on the jury of their trial. Even the hangman who executed
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock performed that role in the film.
THE STORY: On November 15, 1959, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock break into
the remote farmhouse of the Clutter family in search of a safe and the $10,000 it is
reputed to contain, and murder the entire family of four.
104
Smith and Hickock had met in jail and went to Holcomb, Kansas, with the
intention of finding the money that a former cellmate had told Hickock was hid-
den in the house. After killing the Clutters and escaping with forty-three dollars,
Smith and Hickock cash a series of bad checks on their way to Mexico, where
Smith dreams about being a gold prospector. Hickock insists that they return to
the United States, where they cash more worthless checks, not realizing that
Hickock’s former cellmate, aware of a reward, has informed on him.
The killers are caught in Las Vegas, and the alibi that they confidently regard as
airtight unravels when the police question them separately and find that their
stories don’t quite mesh. When their footprints exactly match those that had
stepped in Mr. Clutter’s blood, there is sufficient evidence to convict them, and
they are sentenced to die. After two stays of execution, they are hanged at the
Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing on April 14, 1965.
***
The cold-blooded murder of the very decent Clutter family sparked a national
outrage and inspired Truman Capote to write In Cold Blood (1966). With that
book, he created a new type of literary work, one that blended fact and fiction,
telling a true story but inventing dialogue and making up or combining charac-
ters to enhance the narrative.
BEST LINE: A reporter (not local) asks Alvin Dewey, the detective on the case,
how the killers got into the house. “Probably just walked in,” he says. “Don’t
people around here lock doors?” the reporter persists. “They will tonight,” Dewey
replies.
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THE 39 STEPS
1935

STUDIO: Gaumont-British
PRODUCER: Michael Balcon
SCREENWRITERS: Charles Bennett and Alma Reville; additional dia
logue, Ian Hay
SOURCE: The 39 Steps, novel by John Buchan
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Donat ..............................................................Richard Hannay
Madeleine Carroll .................................................................Pamela
Lucie Mannheim ..................................................Miss Smith, also Annabella
Godfrey Tearle ............................................................Professor Jordan
Peggy Ashcroft ................................................................Mrs. Crofter
John Laurie .............................................................Crofter, the farmer
Frank Cellier .....................................................................sheriff
Wylie Watson .................................................................Mr. Memory
Helen Haye ..................................................................Mrs. Jordan
DID YOU KNOW? The writer of the screenplay, Charles Bennett, worked for
both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Naval Intelligence during
World War II. He was a tremendously gifted screenwriter who worked with Alfred
Hitchcock on some of the master’s most successful films (The Man Who Knew
Too Much, 1934, Sabotage, 1936; The Secret Agent, 1936; and Foreign
Correspondent, 1940).
THE STORY: When a shot is fired in a crowded British music hall, causing a
panic, a young woman who calls herself Miss Smith pleads with Richard Hannay
to take her back to his apartment. When they get there, she reveals to him that
she is in fact a secret agent on the trail of spies who intend to smuggle government
secrets out of the country. Soon after, she is murdered and Hannay is suspected
of the crime. He is convinced that the only way he can clear himself is to find the
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real killers—the espionage agents. Based on the information given to him by
Miss Smith, he heads for Scotland by train, on which he meets the lovely Pamela.
Although attracted to her, he becomes increasingly irritated when she refuses to
believe his story. When the spies catch him, they believe Pamela to be involved,
so they handcuff the two together. Hannay and Pamela escape, still handcuffed,
and are chased both by the police and the espionage agents. Finally realizing that
Hannay’s outré story is true, Pamela agrees to help him, and they return to London
and the music hall where Mr. Memory is performing. Hannay asks him the right
question and the performer unwittingly provides the solution to the crimes.
***
The 39 Steps is the film that made Alfred Hitchcock famous in America. He’d
had a string of successes in England, but it took this highly suspenseful and
accessible thriller to bring him the mass appeal that the film world requires.
As the most successful director of suspense films of all time, Hitchcock had
several tricks that he used on numerous occasions. Notable in The 39 Steps is his
familiar device of having the hero (and in this case the heroine) chased both by
the police and the criminals. The reason for this double-barreled threat is entirely
pragmatic. If the hero is chased by only the bad guys, he could simply go to the
police. But if the police want him as well, he can’t very well go to them for help,
casting him as a far more vulnerable and sympathetic character. This classic
chase film, in many ways reminiscent of Hitchcock’s later North by Northwest, is
a nonstop series of incidents that leave the heroes, as well as the audience,
breathless.
The term “MacGuffin,” so much associated with Hitchcock throughout his
career, first came to be used in connection with this picture. The “MacGuffin” is
the item (stolen jewels, government secrets—whatever) that causes all the activ-
ity to occur. As Hitchcock pointed out, it doesn’t really matter what it is, so long
as it’s there.
When Robert Donat appeared in The 39 Steps, he was at the peak of his
immense popularity, having just made The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934); he was about to make Goodbye, Mr. Chips
(1939). Madeleine Carroll, too, was at the apex of her successful career, starring in
such films as The Case Against Mrs. Ames (1936), The General Died at Dawn
(1936), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937).
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The 39 Steps has been remade twice, once in 1959 with Kenneth More, and
again in 1978 with Robert Powell. Neither is memorable.
BEST LINE: “Mr. Memory” is a music-hall performer whose act is displaying
his remarkable memory. In a ridiculous non sequitur, a patron repeatedly asks
him, “How old is Mae West?” (Remember, this was in 1935!)
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FREAKS
1932
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCERS (UNCREDITED): Irving Thalberg and Harry Sharrock
DIRECTOR: Tod Browning
SCREENWRITERS: Willis Goldbeck and
Leon Gordon; additional
dialogue by Edgar Allan
Woolf and Al Boasberg
SOURCE: “Spurs,” short story by
Tod Robbins
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Wallace Ford .....................................................................Phroso
Leila Hyams ......................................................................Venus
Olga Baclanova .................................................................Cleopatra
Roscoe Ates ......................................................................Roscoe
Henry Victor ...................................................................Hercules
Harry Earles .......................................................................Hans
Daisy Earles ......................................................................Frieda
Rose Dione ..............................................................Madame Tetrallini
DID YOU KNOW? M-G-M challenged Tod Browning, the director of the highly
successful Dracula with Bela Lugosi, to come up with a film that would be even
more terrifying—that would be the greatest horror movie of all time. Drawing on
his own experiences as a runaway to a circus when he was eighteen years old,
Browning produced Freaks, which was a box office flop in the United States and
wasn’t even released in the United Kingdom for thirty years.
A written prologue (attributed variously to Irving Thalberg and Dwain Esper,
who acquired distribution rights) was reportedly added when the title was changed
to Nature’s Mistakes, but the early print screened from M-G-M’s library has the
prologue and was titled Freaks.
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THE STORY: The happy engagement of Hans and Frieda, two of the carnival’s
dwarfs, is broken up when Cleopatra, the beautiful but wicked aerialist, flirts
successfully with the wealthy Hans. Laughing at Hans behind his back, Cleopatra
is having an affair with the equally hard-hearted strongman, Hercules, who has
thrown over the sweet Venus. Knowing that Hans has a fortune, Cleopatra weds
him, then cruelly tells him that their marriage is nothing more than a joke. Later,
one of the other dwarfs overhears Cleopatra and Hercules plotting to kill Hans by
poisoning him. Hans recovers from the poisoning, but the trapeze star plans to
do it again—until the freaks plot their own revenge on her and Hercules. They
attack Hercules with knives and kill him, and put the curse of the freaks on
Cleopatra, who is mysteriously transformed into a “duck woman” and is now the
most horrific of all the freaks in the carnival.
***
Generally grouped with horror films, Freaks in fact has only one brief event
that is beyond the rational: the transmogrification of the aerialist beauty into a
half duck–half woman. The rest of the horror has to do with the appearance of
people born with defects, such as Siamese twins, the living torso (who has no
lower half of his body), the half man–half woman, a bearded lady, pinheads, the
bird girl, the armless girl, the human skeleton, and others—and the behavior of
some of the “normal” people, which is far more “freakish” than that of those with
greater reason, perhaps, to behave poorly.
The film was admired by some reviewers on release but was found overly
disagreeable to others. Audiences, too, had mixed reactions, and it was reported
that it was not uncommon for women to run screaming out of the theater. Today,
of course, it is regarded as one of the great cult films.
There are reports of a different ending, in which Hercules is seen performing in
a music hall in a falsetto voice, suggesting that the freaks emasculated him rather
than killed him, but it does not appear to have been released.
Jean Harlow, then Myrna Loy, was considered for the part of Cleopatra before
it was given to Olga Baclanova.
In the prologue, the statement is made that “Never again will such a story be
filmed, as modern science and teratology is rapidly eliminating such blunders of
nature from the world.”
Some years after its initial release, it was distributed under the
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various titles Nature’s Mistakes, The Monster Show, and Forbidden
Love.
BEST LINE: Barker at a sideshow: “But for the accident of birth, you might be
even as they are.”
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NOTORIOUS
1946
TYPE OF FILM: Espionage/Suspense

STUDIO: RKO
SCREENWRITER: Ben Hecht
SOURCE: Original screenplay
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Cary Grant .......................................................................Devlin
Ingrid Bergman ...........................................................Alicia Huberman
Claude Rains ...........................................................Alexander Sebastian
Louis Calhern ................................................................Paul Prescott
Madame Leopoldine Konstantin ................................................Mme. Sebastian
Reinhold Schunzel ...........................................................“Dr. Anderson”
Moroni Olsen .............................................................Walter Beardsley
Ivan Triesault .................................................................Eric Mathis
Alex Minotis .....................................................................Joseph
Wally Brown .................................................................Mr. Hopkins
DID YOU KNOW? Hollywood censors were still diligent about sex scenes,
which included kissing. A stopwatch was put on the length of the kiss between
John Garfield and Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) to
insure that it wouldn’t go beyond the perceived limit of propriety. In Notorious,
made in the same year, the passionate kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary
Grant, accompanied by lots of soft murmurs and an intimate embrace, was
publicized by the Selznick studio as the longest kiss in the history of Hollywood
movies.
THE STORY: Alicia Huberman, a fun-loving playgirl in Miami, finds her
reputation questioned because her father had been convicted of being a German
spy. She meets Devlin, a U.S. agent, who convinces her to go to South America
with him to help his investigations into the highly dangerous activities in Rio de
Janeiro. There a plot by a group of “former” Nazis to corner the world market in
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enriched uranium that is headed by Alexander Sebastian, who is a friend of Alicia’s
jailed father.
Devlin and Alicia have fallen in love, but soon a plan is devised that will enable
the Americans to spy on Sebastian: Alicia is to marry him. Fearing that Devlin no
longer loves her, and wanting to prove that she is a patriotic American and
remove the taint of suspicion that clings to her because of her father’s activities,
she agrees.
At the party celebrating the marriage, Alicia slips Devlin a key to the wine
cellar, where he discovers uranium ore samples hidden in old wine bottles.
Sebastian, already suspicious of Alicia, discovers the truth and knows he must
dispose of his wife to protect himself. Knowing that a sudden murder would alert
the other members of the uranium cartel to his carelessness, he plots with his
Nazi-sympathizing mother to slowly poison Alicia with arsenic. Too weak to alert
Devlin, she lies helpless in bed until he finally realizes the truth and leads her
away to safety.
***
In addition to being one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, with moments of
suspense so intense as to be nearly unbearable, Notorious is also one of his
most morally ambiguous. The heroine, seen early to be a flirty good-time girl, is
willing to marry and bed an enemy of her country. The hero, claiming to be in love
with her, is perfectly willing to send her off to sleep with another man.
The characters are as aware of this dilemma as the viewer. Devlin recognizes
that it is his duty to send her into the arms of his enemy. That same sense of
patriotic duty forces her to agree. Doubt rears its ugly head when Devlin won-
ders how, if she truly loves him, she could sleep with another man. And she
wonders, if Devlin truly loves her, how he could ask her to do such a thing. We
wonder too.
To complete the picture of moral ambivalence, Sebastian is portrayed as a
gentleman who finds himself in a position not entirely of his own making and who
would, apparently, be far happier if he were able to extricate himself from it.
Circumstances force him along, one step to the next, until he is cornered and,
undoubtedly, doomed.
Inexplicably, someone thought it was a good idea to remake Notorious as a
movie for cable television in 1992.
BEST LINE: Bergman (drunk) to Grant, suggesting a late-night drive: “My car
is outside.” Grant replies, “Naturally.”
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FATAL ATTRACTION
1987

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCERS: Stanley R. Jaffe and Sherry Lansing
DIRECTOR: Adrian Lyne
SCREENWRITER: James Dearden
SOURCE: Diversion, a short subject by James Dearden
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Michael Douglas ............................................................Dan Gallagher
Glenn Close ..................................................................Alex Forrest
Anne Archer ...............................................................Beth Gallagher
Ellen Hamilton Latzen .......................................................Ellen Gallagher
Fred Gwynne .....................................................................Arthur
Mike Nussbaum .............................................................Bob Drimmer
Stuart Pankin .....................................................................Jimmy
Ellen Foley .......................................................................Hildy
Meg Mundy ................................................................Joan Rogerson
Tom Brennan ............................................................Howard Rogerson
DID YOU KNOW? As the second-most commercially successful film noir ever
made (only Basic Instinct did greater box office, having the unfair advantage of
an exquisitely—and frequently—naked Sharon Stone to lure audiences, especially
men, into theater seats), Fatal Attraction nonetheless took severe critical flak for
its ending. In customary Hollywood style, the philandering male receives only
mild punishment for his sexual activity, while the sexually adventurous female
pays with her life.
However, in the original version, director Adrian Lyne presented a far
more complex portrait of Alex Forrest as the one night stand who is overly
possessive, becoming a sympathetic woman rather than an obsessive mon-
ster. In frustration and despair, she kills herself. However, preview audi-
ences so hated the ending and, by extension, the film, that a new ending
114
was substituted, and the more traditional ending helped make it a box office
smash.
THE STORY: A successful and happily married lawyer, Dan Gallagher, is re-
quired to attend a Saturday meeting at the publishing house for which he works,
so his wife and young daughter leave him in New York while they visit her
parents in the suburbs. After the meeting, he goes out to dinner with Alex Forrest,
an editor, and they return to his apartment to have sex, which continues through-
out the weekend. Alex immediately becomes overly attached to him, and when he
tries to leave for his home, she cuts her wrists. He comforts her and they separate.
Although Gallagher has made it clear that there are to be no further involve-
ments, Alex begins to show up unexpectedly, and calls him at the office and in the
middle of the night at home. Finally, she informs him that she is pregnant as a
result of their brief liaison. When he continues to want nothing further to do with
her, she escalates her actions, ruining his car, invading his home, killing his
daughter’s pet rabbit, briefly kidnapping her, and ultimately attempting to stab
his wife to death.
In a violent conclusion, he subdues her, holding her under the water of a
bathtub until he believes her to be dead. With a last burst from the tub, large
kitchen knife still in hand, she slashes at him, only finally to be shot dead by his
wife.
***
Fatal Attraction was a huge success with audiences, but was attacked by
various groups and critics. Feminist groups had a negative response to the film
because they resented the portrayal of a sexually active woman as a violent
schizophrenic. Others charged that the entire story line was manipulative, while
conceding that it was suspenseful.
While certainly a film for its time, it would be impossible to argue that it’s not
old-fashioned in its values. A sexually loose woman is made to pay for her trans-
gression with her life, while the man (far more guilty, as she is single and he’s an
adulterer) is free to return to his wife after a few tense days and resume his happy
life.
Fatal Attraction has been accused (perhaps accurately) of inhibiting sexual
activity in the 1990s because of the price the male protagonist paid for his little
fling, not to mention the ultimate price paid by his sexual partner. It has further
115
been described as a subliminal warning about the dangers of sexual activity in
the era of AIDS.
Academy Award nominations went to the film for Best Picture, to Adrian Lyne
for Best Director, to Glenn Close for Best Actress, and Anne Archer for Best
Supporting Actress.
BEST LINE: Alex tells Gallagher that she’s pregnant as a result of their weekend
together. He asks her how she knows it’s his. She responds (with a cold glare):
“Because I don’t sleep around.”
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D.O.A.
1950
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Harry M. Popkin
PRODUCER: Leo C. Popkin
DIRECTOR: Rudolph Maté
SCREENWRITERS: Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene
SOURCE: Original story by Russell Rouse and
Clarence Greene
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Edmond O’Brien ............................................................Frank Bigelow
Pamela Britton .................................................................Paula Gibson
Luther Adler ......................................................................Majak
Beverly Campbell (later Garland) ..................................................Miss Foster
Lynn Baggett .................................................................Mrs. Philips
Neville Brand ....................................................................Chester
William Ching ...................................................................Halliday
Henry Hart ................................................................Stanley Philips
Laurette Luez ..............................................................Marla Rakubian
DID YOU KNOW? There have been four filmed versions of this unusual story.
The noted 1950 motion picture was a remake of a 1931 German movie made by two
of the greatest directors in cinema history, Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak. In
1969, a modest remake was made by Australian director Eddie Davis under the
title Color Me Dead. This uninspired little film starred Tom Tryon, Carolyn Jones,
Patricia Connolly, and Rick Jason. Finally, there was the big-budget travesty of
1988, again titled D.O.A.—lots of money, lots of bright colors, lots of fast cutting,
and lots of look-at-all-the-camera-tricks-I-learned-in-film-school directing by
Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, who gave the world Max Headroom. It starred
Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Daniel Stern, and Charlotte Rampling, who should be
ashamed of themselves.
117
THE STORY: Frank Bigelow, an accountant in the little desert town of Modesto,
decides he needs a few days off in San Francisco, much to the dismay of his
fiancée who thinks he might get into trouble, which is exactly what he has in
mind. He immediately heads for a gin mill and spots a likely blonde. While dis-
tracted, a stranger drops poison in his drink. Frank heads home, not feeling well,
and the next morning goes to a doctor, who tells him he’s been poisoned and that
he has a day or two, maybe a week, to live.
Bigelow, dying to know who poisoned him, finds that the basis of his murder
occurred in his hometown. He innocently had notarized a bill of sale that, if it
surfaced, could convict a woman and her lover of having killed her husband. The
husband’s death had been rigged to look like a suicide over a business failure,
but the bill of sale would have discredited that scenario.
Reunited with his fiancée, whom he now realizes he truly loves, the doomed
innocent bystander says, “All I did was notarize one little paper.” He finally finds
the man who fatally poisoned him and shoots him—more than once.
***
In this striking variation on the classic detective story, the victim and the
detective are the same person. Talk about noir! The hero, the man the audience is
rooting for, is already dead! A standard element of noir films is the sense of
foreboding, the belief that there cannot be a happy ending for any of the principal
players. In D.O.A., the guesswork is gone. The hero is speaking from the grave.
Several minor roles were played by interesting choices. Two of the doctors
were played by Larry Dobkin and Jerry Paris, both of whom went on to have very
successful careers as directors. In an uncredited cameo, Hugh O’Brien appeared
briefly; he went on the great fame as Wyatt Earp in the wildly popular television
series.
The poison used to kill Bigelow, called luminous toxin, actually exists. It seemed
a good choice of murder weapon, as audiences in America were slightly paranoid
about the ramifications of atomic energy, radioactivity, and the substances in-
volved, all of which had only recently come into public consciousness.
BEST LINE: At the beginning of the film, under the credits, Frank Bigelow
walks into a police station. He tells the captain in charge, “I want to report a
murder.” “Sit down,” the captain says. “Where was the murder committed?” “San
Francisco. Last night.” “Who was murdered?” Long pause. “I was.”
118
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
1940

PRODUCER: Walter Wanger
SCREENWRITERS: Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison; dialogue by James
Hilton and Robert Benchley
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Joel McCrea ................................................Johnny Jones/Huntley Haverstock
Laraine Day ..................................................................Carol Fisher
Herbert Marshall ............................................................Stephen Fisher
George Sanders ...............................................................Scott ffolliott
Albert Basserman ...............................................................Van Meer
Robert Benchley .................................................................Stebbins
Edmund Gwenn ..................................................................Rowley
Eduardo Ciannelli ...................................................................Krug
Harry Davenport ...............................................................Mr. Powers
DID YOU KNOW? The love scene aboard the ship during the violent North
Sea storm was taken from Hitchcock’s own life. Although the script was completed,
Hitchcock added the scene in which the Joel McCrea character asks the Laraine
Day character to marry him. There is nothing fancy about the scene, no sappy
clinches and such, just the same straightforward proposal that Hitchcock made
to Alma fifteen years earlier. McCrea: “I’m in love with you and I want to marry
you.” Day: “I’m in love with you, and I want to marry you.” McCrae: “That cuts
down our love scene quite a bit, doesn’t it?”
THE STORY: At the beginning of 1939, John Jones, an American newspaper
reporter, is sent to Europe under the name Huntley Haverstock. His mission is to
learn more about the possibility of war, mainly by interviewing Van Meer, a Dutch
119
diplomat who has committed to memory a key secret element in the Allied Peace
Treaty. Jones meets Stephen Fisher, a member of the British upper class who is
the head of a pacifist organization, and his daughter Carol, with whom Jones
quietly falls in love. When Van Meer is kidnapped by foreign agents, Jones goes
to Holland to find him. At a meeting in Amsterdam Square, Van Meer doesn’t
seem to recognize Jones and is shot and killed, while the assassin disappears in
a sea of black umbrellas. With Carol and ffolliott, a British correspondent, Jones
pursues the killer to a windmill in the Dutch countryside, which is the headquarters
of a foreign spy ring.
Jones sends ffolliott for help, and finds a drugged Van Meer, proving that the
murdered man was a lookalike impostor. The spies flee before the authorities
return, so Jones goes back to London, where he goes to see Fisher. During the
visit, Jones recognizes one of the men from the windmill. He realizes that Fisher is
a traitor, and with ffolliott’s help, he rescues Van Meer.
When war is declared between England and Germany, Carol and her father get
on a plane for America and are surprised to meet Jones and ffolliott. The plane is
shot down over the Atlantic, and Fisher, knowing he has been found out and
facing arrest in America, sacrifices his life to save his daughter. An American ship
rescues them, and Jones is able to report the story to his newspaper.
***
Producer Walter Wanger had purchased the rights to Personal History, the
memoirs of foreign correspondent Vincent Sheean, and planned to make an im-
portant and timely film about the crisis in Europe, but he ran into endless prob-
lems—frequently of his own making—along the way. Numerous screenplays
were rejected because they lacked plot and drama, and he couldn’t get financing
because of fears that the film might compromise America’s position of neutrality.
He was eventually able to make a deal with David O. Selznick to borrow Alfred
Hitchcock to direct. Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, Charles Bennett, and longtime
collaborator Joan Harrison put together a script that was workable but had no
similarity to the book, nor was it the anti-Nazi film Wanger had envisioned. Wanger
wanted to see each development in the European crisis in the script. Hitchcock
assured him this would be so, showing him the daily rushes, which pleased
Wanger, and the show went on. In fact, Hitchcock added nothing to the script,
and the film remains only mildly political, being transformed into a romantic ad-
120
venture film with many comic moments. Only its ending, written by Ben Hecht
and out of step with the rest of the film, urges America to be prepared. Five days
after the last scene was shot, Germany dropped bombs on London. Ironically, the
film was reported to be a personal favorite of Hermann Goering.
Foreign Correspondent was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, losing to
another Hitchcock film, Rebecca. It also received other nominations, including
several for technical categories, as well as one for Albert Basserman as Best
Supporting Actor.
Hitchcock had wanted Gary Cooper to play Johnny Jones but was turned
down because Cooper claimed thrillers were held in low regard. Years later, he
told Hitchcock that he had made a mistake and should have taken the role.
BEST LINE: Mr. Powers, the editor of the New York Morning Globe, is
disgusted with his foreign correspondents for failing to send any hard news to
the paper and decides that he wants a real reporter to go to Europe, selecting the
charming if slightly dim Johnny Jones, who admits that he knows nothing about
Europe or any crisis. “What Europe needs,” Powers exclaims, “is a fresh, unused
mind.”
121
SUSPICION
1941

STUDIO: RKO
PRODUCER: Harry E. Edington
SCREENWRITERS: Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison,
and Alma Reville
SOURCE: Before the Fact, novel by Francis Iles
(pseudonym of Anthony Berkeley
Cox)
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Cary Grant ...............................................................Johnny Aysgarth
Joan Fontaine .............................................................Lina McLaidlaw
Cedric Hardwicke ........................................................General McLaidlaw
Nigel Bruce ................................................................Beaky Thwaite
Dame May Whitty ..........................................................Mrs. McLaidlaw
Isabel Jeans ................................................................Mrs. Newsham
DID YOU KNOW? Alfred Hitchcock hated the title, writing in a memo that
“Suspicion is such a cheap and dull title and makes it sounds like a B picture.” He
preferred the title of the book on which the film is based, Before the Fact, but
polls showed a lukewarm response from audiences. At this time, George Gallup
often polled moviegoers about potential titles for works in progress, and Before
the Fact did poorly. Hitchcock suggested Fright. The studio suggested
Suspicious Lady, and soon as many as fifty titles were being considered and
polled, including Search for Tomorrow, Girl in the Vise, Love in Irons, Men Make
Poor Husbands, and Last Lover. Finally, Hitchcock pushed hard for Johnny, but
polls showed that Suspicion was a three-to-one choice over its nearest competitor
and opened to great box-office success.
THE STORY: The charming and handsome Johnny Aysgarth meets the prim
wallflower Lina McLaidlaw and they quickly fall in love and elope. After a long
122
honeymoon, they return to a lavish house and furnishings ordered by Johnny,
who turns out to be penniless, counting on his wife’s income to support them.
Lina insists that he take a job and, to placate her, he does, only to be fired for
embezzling two thousand pounds. When she learns of his thievery and the
frequent lies he has told her, Lina packs her bags to leave him, but then realizes
she loves him too much to go away. Just as she tears up her farewell note, Johnny
hands her a telegram informing her of her father’s sudden death. At the reading of
the will, Lina and her husband learn that he has left her nothing, clearly because
he had always distrusted Johnny.
Soon after, Johnny’s bumbling friend Beaky Thwaite comes for a weekend visit
and Johnny draws Beaky into a real-estate deal that will require a large invest-
ment. Lina has visions of Johnny killing his friend for the money but is relieved to
learn that, in fact, Johnny saved his life. A few days later, however, her fears
resurface when Beaky and Johnny are in London together and Beaky dies. The
cause of death is a glass of brandy, and Lina’s neighbor, a writer of mystery
novels, tells her that Johnny recently borrowed a book in which brandy is the
murder weapon.
New fears arise when Lina discovers a letter in which Johnny has inquired
about borrowing against her life insurance policy. Since he can collect only in the
event of her death, she begins to fear for her life. At dinner, Johnny asks the
mystery writer and her coroner husband about undetectable poisons, convinc-
ing Lina that that is how she will meet her end. Lina is unable to sleep that night
and Johnny brings her a glass of milk, which she won’t touch, convinced that it
is lethal. She decides to stay with her mother for a few days and Johnny insists on
driving her, speeding wildly along the coast. When the passenger side door
swings open, Johnny reaches across the seat to grab her and she pulls away from
him. She believes he was trying to push her out, while he furiously explains that
he was trying to save her. Now she knows that Johnny wanted the poison to
commit suicide because of his inability to pay his debts, and he admits he had
considered it but decided that jail was a better choice. She begs his forgiveness
for doubting him, and he turns the car around to return home.
***
From the beginning, the conclusion of the film was a problem, with the conflict-
ing desires of the studio, Cary Grant, Hitchcock, the Production Code, and audi-
ences.
123
In the book, Aysgarth poisons his wife with a glass of milk. The Production
Code, however, prohibited a murderer from surviving and profiting from his crime.
Furthermore, RKO was convinced such a downbeat ending would prove unsat-
isfactory to audiences. And, finally, Grant was not very pleased about being cast
as a wife-killer.
A different ending was proposed in which Lina, pregnant, knows she is going
to be poisoned but allows her husband to kill her and their unborn baby, because
she doesn’t want the blood of a murderer to flow into the next generation.
Yet another ending had Johnny confessing to his sins as a liar and a gambler
who failed to pay his debts, then joining the RAF to try to atone.
Another proposal was that Lina meet another man, have an affair, and then
allow herself to be poisoned, partly in contrition. Preview audiences openly
laughed at this one.
Finally, the present ending, in which all thoughts of murder emanate from the
imagination of Lina, was found to be the least objectionable. Audiences liked it,
therefore RKO liked it, Grant liked it, the Production Code had no problem with it,
and Hitchcock accepted it, though he always maintained that the ending he really
wanted was to have Johnny poison Lina, who, knowing she was going to be
murdered, had written a letter to her mother reaffirming her love for him but
exposing him as the murderer: Just as she drinks the poisoned milk, Johnny drops
the letter into a mailbox.
In the famous scene in which Johnny carries the glass of milk up the stairs and
into his wife’s bedroom, the camera focuses on it, just as Lina’s eyes do. Hitchcock
had placed a lighted bulb inside the glass to make it glow slightly but compel-
lingly; it is impossible to take one’s eyes from the menacing glass.
Suspicion was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and Joan
Fontaine won for Best Actress, defeating her sister, Olivia de Havilland, who had
been nominated for her role in Hold Back the Dawn. Forty years later, Fontaine
assured the world that the famous feud between the two had never really existed
and, besides, it was de Havilland’s fault.
BEST LINE: Lina McLaidlaw has been afraid that her husband Johnny planned
to murder his old friend Beaky in order to make a small fortune in a real estate deal.
When Beaky tells her how Johnny saved his life, she is relieved and says, “Johnny,
I can never tell you how much this means to me.” Beaky responds, “It means a
good bit to me too!”
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CROSSFIRE
1947
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: RKO
PRODUCER: Adrian Scott
DIRECTOR: Edward Dmytryk
SCREENWRITER: John Paxton
SOURCE: The Brick Foxhole, novel by Richard Brooks
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Young .....................................................................Finlay
Robert Mitchum ............................................................Sergeant Keeley
Robert Ryan ...........................................................Monty Montgomery
Gloria Grahame ...................................................................Ginny
Paul Kelly ......................................................................The Man
Sam Levene ...............................................................Joseph Samuels
Jacqueline White .........................Mary Mitchell
Steve Brodie ................................................................Floyd Bowers
George Cooper .............................................................Arthur Mitchell
Richard Benedict .....................................................................Bill
DID YOU KNOW? Two of the principal players, both noted for distinguished
roles in so many other noir films that they became typecast, worked totally
against type in this film. Gloria Grahame, the ultimate victim in film after film—
usually playing a sleazy prostitute or party girl—was actually a classically trained
stage actress who longed to play Lady Macbeth. She was well known in Hollywood
for having a lightning-fast wit and longed to get away from the roles for which
she is now remembered. Her one chance came when she got the role of Billie
Dawn in Born Yesterday, but RKO refused to loan her out to Columbia and the
part went to Judy Holliday, who won an Oscar.
Similarly, Robert Ryan was nothing like the Neanderthals he so frequently
played. An intellectual who loved Shakespeare, he attended Dartmouth and sought
a career as a writer before attending acting school and signing with Paramount to
act in B war movies.
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THE STORY: The war has ended and four army buddies—Monty Montgom-
ery, Floyd Bowers, Arthur Mitchell, and Leroy—go out to celebrate their immi-
nent return to civilian life. They impose on Joe Samuels and go to his apartment
to continue the party. As he gets drunker and more belligerent, Monty’s anti-
Semitism heats up and he beats the Jewish Samuels to death. Police Captain
Finlay at first believes the killer is Mitchell, but Army Sergeant Peter Keeley, who
knows all the men involved, enters the case and assures him that Mitchell isn’t
capable of such a crime. Monty, afraid that Bowers won’t be able to stand up to
the penetrating questioning and that he’ll reveal the true killer, murders Bowers.
Leroy and Mitchell go into hiding, but Keeley, aided by Ginny Tremaine, a pros-
titute, finds them and they set a trap for Monty, convincing him that Bowers is
still alive. When Monty shows up to finish the job, he is arrested. As he breaks
free and runs to escape, he is shot.
***
Crossfire is the first of the pure noir films to raise a serious social issue and as
a result achieved the kind of critical acclaim that was never accorded equally
good films that lacked a similar message. Producer Adrian Scott was committed to
making socially conscious films and found this the perfect way to make a popular
movie that would still deliver a strong anti-Fascist statement.
At a rival studio, Darryl F. Zanuck had acquired the rights to Gentleman’s
Agreement, a novel by Laura Hobson about anti-Semitism. The new head of
RKO, Dore Schary, urged Scott to rush the film so that it could be released before
Zanuck’s project in order to get first crack at the liberal audience. It worked. The
film was a smash at the box office, got rave reviews, and received tons of awards,
many from humanitarian groups.
Both the producer, Adrian Scott, and the director, Edward Dmytryk, soon were
hauled in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where they took
Fifth Amendment pleas and were sent to jail. Both were fired by the studio and
blacklisted in Hollywood for several years. Dmytryk reestablished himself by
pointing a finger at other members of the Hollywood community. Ironically, the
furthest left of all the players was Robert Ryan, who spent decades as an activist
for left-wing causes but was never brought before HUAC.
Academy Award nominations went to Crossfire as Best Picture, Dmytryk for
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Best Director, Gloria Grahame for Best Supporting Actress, and Robert Ryan for
Best Supporting Actor.
BEST LINE: Capt. Finlay has just shot the fleeing Montgomery when Leroy
asks, “Captain, is he dead?” Finlay answers, “He was dead for a long time. He just
didn’t know it.”
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KISS OF DEATH
1947
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCER: Fred Kohlmar
DIRECTOR: Henry Hathaway
SCREENWRITERS: Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer
SOURCE: “Stoolpigeon,” story by Eleazar Lipsky
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Victor Mature ......................................................Nick Bianco/Nick Cavallo
Brian Donlevy ..............................................................Louis D’Angelo
Coleen Gray ................................................................Nettie Cavallo
Richard Widmark .............................................................Tommy Udo
Taylor Holmes ................................................................Earl Howser
Howard Smith ....................................................................Warden
Karl Malden ........................................................Sergeant William Cullen
Mildred Dunnock ................................................................Ma Rizzo
DID YOU KNOW? Perhaps the greatest performance as a psychopathic killer
this side of James Cagney was given by Richard Widmark in his screen debut. He
memorably played Tommy Udo, in a performance that made him an overnight star.
Audiences were struck by Widmark’s strange manner of speaking, his piercing
eyes, his almost skeletal face, his overly energetic method of movement, but
mostly by his laugh, a humorous giggle that was terrifying. In what may be the
single most memorable scene in the history of film noir, Udo goes to the home of
a stool pigeon that he has been sent to kill. When he realizes that the squealer has
fled and that his wheelchair-bound mother has lied to protect him, he ties her to
the chair with an electrical cord, wheels her to the top of a flight of stairs, and
pushes her down, giggling maniacally the whole time.
It was a strange path to stardom for Widmark, who had been an all-American
boy in his hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He was an honor student in
high school, president of his senior class at Lake Forest College in Illinois, played
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on the football team, was captain of the debating team, and was a member of the
drama department. When he came to New York in 1942, he got leading man roles
on Broadway in Kiss and Tell and Kiss Them for Me. Nothing he did prepared the
world for Tommy Udo.
THE STORY: On Christmas Eve, Nick Bianco and two other crooks hold up a
jewelry store at the top of the Chrysler building and are caught. Although the
Assistant District Attorney, Louis D’Angelo, repeatedly asks Bianco to cooperate
in exchange for D’Angelo’s help in getting to see his wife and two daughters,
Bianco refuses, putting his faith in his lawyer, Earl Howser. When Bianco learns
that his partners and his lawyer did not provide financial help as promised for his
wife, causing her to commit suicide, he agrees to snitch on his jailmate, the
psychopathic Tommy Udo, and his former cohorts, especially Pete Rizzo.
Bianco tells his crooked lawyer that Rizzo has squealed, and Howser sends
Udo to kill Rizzo. When Udo finds him already gone, he kills Rizzo’s mother
instead by pushing the wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs.
Given parole in exchange for information about the dangerous Udo, Bianco
marries Nettie Cavallo, who used to baby-sit his daughters, and moves to a
house in the suburbs. When Udo is unexpectedly acquitted in spite of Bianco’s
testimony, Bianco decides to protect his wife and children by sending them away
and forcing a confrontation with the maniacal killer.
Bianco arranges with D’Angelo to have police nearby when he finds Udo in
his favorite restaurant, taunting him until Udo pulls a gun and shoots him. Badly
wounded but alive, Bianco goes back to his family and Udo is hauled away to
prison.
***
The scene in which Udo pushes the old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of
stairs was so shocking and repellent that many theaters edited it out. Even today,
more than a half century later, it remains horrifying.
The original title of the picture was Stoolpigeon, the name of the story submit-
ted by Eleazar Lipsky. It was changed to Blind Date, but when the head of
production at Twentieth Century-Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, spotted a reference in a
Hedda Hopper column to an event in a politician’s life as “the kiss of death,” he
liked the sound of it so much that he changed the film title again. Lipsky, an
assistant district attorney in New York, submitted the story under a pseudonym,
Lawrence L. Blaine.
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The year after the film’s release, novelist Lawrence B. Bachman sued Twentieth
Century-Fox, Zanuck, producer Fred Kohlmar, Lipsky, and Penguin Books (which
had published a novelization of the screenplay) for $125,000. He claimed that he
had been damaged because he had published a book in 1946 called The Kiss of
Death and that the public had been misled into thinking that the novelization,
titled Kiss of Death, was his book. Three years later, Bachman dropped the suit.
Although Nick Bianco’s wife, Maria, and his cohort Pete Rizzo are mentioned
prominently in the movie, she is never seen and Rizzo appears only in the open-
ing scene. All the other scenes in which they were featured ended up on the
cutting room floor.
Richard Widmark received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting
Actor for his compelling role as Tommy Udo. Eleazar Lipsky was also nominated
for Best Original Story.
A western version of Kiss of Death was released in 1958, titled The Fiend Who
Walked the West, starring Hugh O’Brian and Robert Evans. In 1995, Kiss of Death
was remade starring David Caruso as Nick Bianco, Nicolas Cage as Tommy Udo,
and Helen Hunt as Nick’s wife. The film failed, but not as miserably as the usually
first-rate Cage, who tried to out menace Widmark with such extremity that he
became a bad cartoon.
BEST LINE: Tommy Udo, telling a crook’s mother that he’ll find her son, who
he believes to be a stool pigeon: “You know what I do to squealers?” he asks her.
“I let ’em have it in the belly, so they can roll around for a long time, thinking it
over.”
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SPELLBOUND
1945

STUDIO: Selznick International
SCREENWRITER: Ben Hecht
SOURCE: The House of Dr. Edwardes, novel by Francis
Beeding
RUNNING TIME: 110/116 minutes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Ingrid Bergman ......................................................Dr. Constance Peterson
Gregory Peck .....................John Ballantine/Dr. Anthony Edwardes/J.B./
John Brown
Michael Chekhov ...........................................................Dr. Alex Brulov
Leo G. Carroll ...............................................................Dr. Murchison
Rhonda Fleming ..........................................................Mary Carmichael
John Emery ...................................................................Dr. Fleurot
Norman Lloyd ...................................................................Garmes
Bill Goodwin ..............................................................house detective
Steven Geray ...................................................................Dr. Graff
Donald Curtis .....................................................................Harry
Wallace Ford .........................................................stranger in hotel lobby
Art Baker ...............................................................Lieutenant Cooley
Regis Toomey ............................................................Sergeant Gillespie
Paul Harvey ...................................................................Dr. Hanish
DID YOU KNOW? Alfred Hitchcock hired Salvador Dali, the famous Spanish
surrealist painter, to design a dream sequence. Hitchcock wanted to do something
different from the typical Hollywood dream sequence, which generally was little
more than a hazy, blurry image created by rubbing Vaseline on the lens. The
producer, David O. Selznick, thought Hitchcock had hired the artist as a publicity
gimmick, but the director genuinely had done it for creative reasons. He wanted
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vividness and greater sharpness than in the main body of the film itself. Dali
worked closely and directly with Hitchcock, who wrote a long and complicated
sequence that lasted twenty minutes, but Selznick found it far too long and
incomprehensibly complex, so it was edited down to about two minutes. Dali had
created about a hundred sketches and five oil paintings—all at Hitchcock’s
instruction and constructed entirely from the director’s imagination. Hitchcock
left the set before the dream sequences had been entirely edited, so Selznick had
to replace him with William Cameron Menzies after Josef von Sternberg turned
him down. Menzies found the dream sequence so unappealing that he refused
credit for the film. When the dream sequence got rave reviews and contributed to
the overall success of the film, Hitchcock took credit himself. Dali received $4,000
for his two months of work.
THE STORY: The young and handsome psychologist Dr. Edwardes, who is
replacing Dr. Murchison, the outgoing head of Green Manors mental hospital,
finds a mutual attraction with Dr. Constance Peterson. She reads a signed book
by him from the hospital library, goes to talk to him, and they become more
romantically involved. All is not well, however, as the sight of parallel lines makes
him dizzy and confused. Later, she compares the signature in the book with a note
he’d written to her, and she realizes that he is an impostor, which he readily
admits. He is an amnesiac who can’t remember his own identity but is convinced
that he killed the real Dr. Edwardes. Constance refuses to believe him, confident
that he is delusional. He tells her that he found a cigarette case with the initials
J.B. in a pocket, and she tells him that with her therapy they will be able to recover
his memory.
He leaves for New York and she follows, taking him to Rochester to meet her
much loved old mentor, Dr. Alex Brulov, whom she tells that she and J.B. are on
their honeymoon. J.B. stares dazedly at his shaving cream when he prepares to
shave and has an even more profound reaction to the sight of snow outside
Brulov’s house. Constance guesses that J.B. and Dr. Edwardes had been skiing
together and helps him recall where, and they set off to Gabriel Valley.
While they are skiing together, he recalls a terrible incident from his childhood
when he accidentally pushed his brother off a roof, causing him to be impaled on
the spikes of a fence below. He then saves Constance from going over the edge
of a precipice—the same one from which Dr. Edwardes fell to his death. The
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recalled memory of his childhood tragedy brings back his name; John Ballantine.
He is arrested when the police find Edwardes’s body exactly where J.B. told them
it would be, but they discover that it has a bullet in it. He is convicted of murder,
but Constance, still believing in his innocence, returns to Green Manors where
she has a conversation with Dr. Murchison. Murchison inadvertently mentions
that he knew the real Dr. Edwardes, thereby revealing that he must have known
J.B. was an impostor though he acted as if he did not. She further realizes that
Murchison must have shot Edwardes in view of J.B., who sublimated the action
because of repressed guilt about his brother’s death. She confronts Murchison
and he pulls a gun on her, but she talks him out of killing her. As she leaves his
office and closes the door, he turns the gun on himself.
***
A movie based on psychological themes was a pet project of producer David
O. Selznick, and he wanted Hitchcock to direct it. Hitchcock went to London and
bought all theatrical rights to The House of Dr. Edwardes, a novel by Francis
Beeding, convinced Selznick this was the perfect vehicle, and sold the rights to
him for a whopping profit.
Numerous psychiatric and psychological experts were consulted, and several
were hired to help assure that the film would be scientifically accurate. As soon
as Hitchcock hired Ben Hecht to write the screenplay, they toured mental institu-
tions in Connecticut and New York, ending with the psychiatric wards at Bellevue
Hospital. Additionally, Selznick hired his own analyst, Dr. May E. Romm, a distin-
guished psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, to serve as consultant on the film, and later
added Dr. Karl Menninger, another noted psychiatrist.
Joseph Cotten had been planned to star as J.B., but Selznick cast him in an-
other movie, I’ll Be Seeing You, and he decided instead on the rising young star
Gregory Peck for Spellbound. Dorothy McGuire was to have been Dr. Constance
Peterson, but Ingrid Bergman became available and replaced her.
Academy Award nominations went to Spellbound for Best Picture, Alfred
Hitchcock for Best Director, and Michael Chekhov for Best Supporting Actor.
Hitchcock Alert: When people emerge from a crowded elevator, Hitchcock is
among them.
BEST LINE: Peck (suffering from amnesia) to Bergman: “Will you love me just
as much when I’m normal?” Bergman: “I’ll be insane about you.”
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TOPKAPI
1964
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Comedy

PRODUCER: Jules Dassin
DIRECTOR: Jules Dassin
SCREENWRITER: Monja Danischewsky
SOURCE: The Light of Day, novel by Eric Ambler
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Melina Mercouri ............................................................Elizabeth Lipp
Peter Ustinov ..............................................................Arthur Simpson
Maximilian Schell ..................................................................Walter
Robert Morley ................................................................Cedric Page
Akim Tamiroff ....................................................................Geven
Despo Diamantidou .................................................................Voula
Gilles Segal .......................................................................Giulio
Jess Hahn .......................................................................Fischer
Titos Wandis ....................................................................Harback
Ege Ernart ...................................................................Major Tufan
DID YOU KNOW? Peter Ustinov won an Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor for his role as the sleazy Englishman Arthur Simpson. Along with his many
other awards, he keeps the famous gold statue, perhaps the most important
award any actor can win, in a glass case in his bathroom. Someone suggested to
the much-loved actor that this room seemed to be lacking in dignity for something
so important, but Ustinov maintained that it was the only room in his house
where he could comfortably admire the monuments to his achievements without
appearing egotistical.
THE STORY: Elizabeth Lipp (not her real name, she quickly confides) has a
passion to steal a fabulous jeweled dagger from Istanbul’s Topkapi museum and
has her lover (though she hasn’t seem him for three years), William Walter, design
the plan. He decides that the other necessary members of the gang that will pull
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off the caper must be amateurs, and he recruits a strange coterie. Cedric Page is
an inventor and electronic genius; Giulio is a mute acrobat; and Fischer is the
muscle.
While still in Greece, where the plans have been laid, Elizabeth and William
Walter hire Arthur Simpson, an unsuccessful con man, to drive their car across
the border into Turkey. They fail to tell Simpson that a rifle and grenades are
hidden in the car. When Simpson is caught at the Turkish border, he is forced to
work undercover for the Turkish police—who believe they have uncovered a
terrorist plot—or he will be sent to jail. Simpson infiltrates Elizabeth’s gang of
thieves. Their drunken cook misunderstands some overheard conversation, be-
lieves the crooks are a gang of Soviet spies, and imparts this information to
Simpson, who passes it on to the Turks.
Meanwhile, Page has figured out that the floor of the museum is weight-sensi-
tive once the alarms are turned on, so even the slightest pressure will set off the
alarms. The plan is to enter from the roof, with Fischer holding a rope while Giulio
is lowered and removes the dagger from its case without touching the floor.
When Fischer’s hands are injured, the gang decides to recruit Simpson, offering
him $10,000 to lower Giulio instead. He writes a note to himself, resigning from the
Turkish Secret Service, and flushes it away.
The meticulously planned robbery goes exactly as planned except that a small
bird has flown in through the same window used by Giulio. When it lands on the
floor, alarms go off and the theft is discovered, sending the entire gang good-
naturedly into prison, where Elizabeth hatches a new scheme to steal the Russian
crown jewels.
***
Although it is one of the handful of best comic caper films ever made, Topkapi
was not a huge box office success. Clearly, the ending suggested that a sequel
was planned, but it never happened, in spite of a decade of rumors.
Jules Dassin, the producer and director, was married to Melina Mercouri, the
star. He had previously made a first-rate caper film in France, Rififi, which lacked
the many comic elements of Topkapi.
The source novel for the screenplay, The Light of Day, is the only novel by Eric
Ambler, one of the great espionage novelists of all time, that did not involve spies
and international intrigue of a serious nature.
135
Bruce Geller, the creator of the immensely popular television show, Mission:
Impossible, claimed that Topkapi was the inspiration for his series.
BEST LINE: The gang, secure in the knowledge that the caper has gone off as
planned, go to the police station to tell them of their astounding discovery:
weapons in their car. The alarm goes off during their visit and the police officer
learns what has happened, and tells them, “I know now why you are here.” The
surprised Simpson says, “You do? Do you really, sir?” And the policeman replies,
“Yes, Mr. Simpson. A little bird told me.”
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KEY LARGO
1948
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

PRODUCER: Jerry Wald
SCREENWRITER: John Huston and Richard Brooks
SOURCE: Key Largo, play by Maxwell Anderson
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Humphrey Bogart ...........................................................Frank McCloud
Edward G. Robinson ..........................................................Johnny Rocco
Lauren Bacall ................................................................Nora Temple
Lionel Barrymore ............................................................James Temple
Claire Trevor .................................................................Gaye Dawn
Thomas Gomez ...............................................................Curley Hoff
Jay Silverheels ...............................................................Tom Osceola
Harry Lewis ...................................................................Toots Bass
John Rodney ..........................................................Deputy Clyde Sawyer
Marc Lawrence ....................................................................Ziggy
DID YOU KNOW? In an early scene, Bogart (as Major Frank McCloud) visits
the widow and father of a war buddy who was killed in action. Lionel Barrymore,
as James Temple, is eager to hear of his son’s exploits, so as his former commanding
officer, McCloud tells him of his son’s heroic actions. This speech, by writer/
director John Huston, was largely drawn from San Pietro, a 1944 war documentary
that he had also made.
THE STORY: Major Frank McCloud, recently returned from the war, goes to a
hotel on Key Largo to visit the family of a soldier killed under his command and
finds that it has been taken over by a gang of criminals. A hurricane hits, scaring
the leader of the gang, the notorious Johnny Rocco. When the storm lets up,
Sheriff Ben Wade comes looking for his deputy, whom Rocco has killed, intimating
that two Indians had killed him. Wade finds the Indians, who are wanted for
escaping from jail after a drunken spree, and kills them both.
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Rocco plans to return to Cuba with his gang, and McCloud agrees to pilot the
boat. Three of the gangsters go below and McCloud abruptly speeds up, throw-
ing one of those on deck overboard and shooting the other. One of the thugs
comes running up the stairs, and McCloud shoots him too. Rocco orders the
remaining henchman up the stairs to deal with McCloud and, when he refuses,
Rocco kills him. The frightened thug then tries to make a deal with McCloud,
offering him all the money from his recently concluded deal, but McCloud simply
waits for him to come up on deck and shoots him when he does. He turns the boat
around and heads back to Key Largo and Nora, the widow of his slain army
comrade.
***
If the plot of Key Largo sounds familiar, you are right. In The Desperate Hours,
Bogart plays Glenn Griffin, an escaped gangster who, with his gang, holds a
family hostage. In The Petrified Forest, Bogart plays an escaped gangster who,
with his gang, holds a group of people hostage. Here, in Key Largo, Bogart plays
one of the people held hostage by a gang of criminals.
Claire Trevor, as Gaye Dawn, the drunken girlfriend of Johnny Rocco, won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
For those unfamiliar with American geography, the film opens with a foreword
explaining that: At the southernmost point of the United States are the Florida
Keys, a string of small islands held together by a concrete causeway. Largest of
these remote coral islands is Key Largo.
Key Largo has been portrayed as a political statement, a position enhanced by
director/screenwriter John Huston’s frequent contemporary and retrospective
statements. The character of Johnny Rocco represented fascism, with a desire to
return to the “good old days” when democracy and freedom were not allowed in
his world. Bogart, a war hero, complains about America’s postwar aimlessness
and political corruption. Finally, of course, he realizes that he cannot allow the
thugs to win and he takes up arms (in this case, a handgun slipped to him by
Rocco’s boozy mistress) to “cleanse the world of ancient evils,” as the script
portentiously puts it.
BEST LINE: The gangsters have just taken over the hotel owned by James
Temple, a tough old bird confined to a wheelchair. As the hoods bully the hostages,
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Temple will have none of it, baiting one of the thugs. “That big gun in your
hand,” he says, “makes you look grown up—you think. I’ll bet you spend hours
posing in front of a mirror holding it, trying to look tough.”
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THE FUGITIVE
1993

PRODUCER: Arnold Kopelson
DIRECTOR: Andrew Davis
SCREENWRITERS: Jeb Stuart and David Twohy; story by David
Twohy
SOURCE: The Fugitive, TV series, created by Roy
Huggins
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Harrison Ford ...........................................................Dr. Richard Kimble
Tommy Lee Jones ..........................................Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard
Sela Ward ..................................................................Helen Kimble
Julianne Moore ...........................................................Dr. Ann Eastman
Joe Pantoliano ..............................................................Cosmo Renfro
Andreas Katsulas .................................................Sykes—The One-Armed Man
Jeroen Krabbé ..........................................................Dr. Charles Nichols
Daniel Roebuck ....................................................................Biggs
L. Scott Caldwell ...................................................................Poole
DID YOU KNOW? The film version of The Fugitive was, of course, based on
the hugely popular television series of the 1960s, the last episode of which was,
at the time, the highest rated program in the history of television. Harrison Ford,
who plays Dr. Richard Kimble, the role played by David Jansen in the TV series,
never saw a single episode before starring in the motion picture.
While it has been popular in recent years to make big budget movies based on
successful television series, the vast majority have been both critical and finan-
cial failures (think of Leave It to Beaver, The Mod Squad, Twilight Zone—The
Movie, and The Beverly Hillbillies). The Fugitive was both commercially suc-
cessful and critically acclaimed, perhaps because it changed so dramatically from
one medium to the other. Whereas the TV program was a character-driven, mod-
140
estly budgeted series of dramas about a thoughtful and sensitive man about
whom audiences cared, the motion picture version was a big, fast-paced action
thriller that kept audiences on the edge of their seats. Both good—but 180-
degree opposites from each other.
THE STORY: Dr. Richard Kimble, an eminent surgeon, returns home from an
emergency operation to find his wife murdered. He struggles with the intruder, a
one-armed man, who escapes. Kimble is arrested, tried and convicted of the
murder.
As a bus transports him to prison, an escape plan hatched by other convicts
goes awry and the bus careens onto a train track. Just before the train smashes
into the bus, Kimble rescues one of the guards, then escapes.
When Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard arrives, he questions the guards and
learns that Kimble and another convict have escaped. Kimble, meanwhile, has
made it to a hospital where he cleans up, shaves his beard, puts on doctor’s
clothing and steals an ambulance, with Gerard pursuing him in a helicopter.
Trapped in a roadblocked tunnel, Kimble manages to escape through a drainage
system, again with Gerard in pursuit. He gets Gerard’s gun and yells to him, “I
didn’t kill my wife!” Gerard yells back, “I don’t care!”
Kimble takes off with Gerard, who has pulled out a backup weapon, again in
pursuit. When Kimble comes to a precipice above a dam, the marshal tells him to
drop his gun, which he does, then leaps over the edge.
Kimble survives the death-defying leap and works his way back to Chicago,
where he makes contact with his lawyer and a trusted colleague, Dr. Charles
Nichols. After several other narrow escapes, Kimble learns that Nichols knew the
one-armed man and had framed his friend in order to prevent him from discover-
ing a scheme by which Nichols would have made a fortune by selling a highly
dubious drug. Kimble soon catches up with the one-armed man and struggles
with him on an elevated train, killing him, and later also confronts Nichols in a
roof-top battle. Gerard finally acknowledges Kimble’s innocence and removes
the handcuffs from the exhausted doctor.
***
This is a chase movie, pure and simple, with little detection and not much in the
way of clues, observation or deduction. Much like a James Bond film, the overall
story serves mainly as a framework for a series of smaller vignettes and set-
141
pieces. On those terms, it is one of the most exciting movies of the past several
decades.
Harrison Ford actually hurt his leg during the filming of the sequence in the
woods and decided to delay surgery until filming was completed so that his
character would retain the limp. From that scene on, Dr. Kimble has a limp, barely
noticeable when he walks but quite obvious when he runs.
In the scene in which the train crashes, director Andrew Davis used a real train
(not a miniature, as is so often done) and crashed it. The engine was not de-
stroyed and survives, now pulling a dinner train on which can be seen props from
the film, including the prison bus.
Tommy Lee Jones won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his
portrayal of Marshal Gerard. The Fugitive was nominated for Best Picture, losing
to Schindler’s List.
There was a sequel to The Fugitive. In 1998, Tommy Lee Jones again played
Sam Gerard in U.S. Marshals, a decent thriller that makes up in breathless action
what it lacks in originality.
BEST LINE: After the bus has been destroyed by the train and the U.S. Marshals
are questioning a guard, Marshal Poole listens to the odd concoction and asks,
“Care to revise your statement, sir?” The guard cleverly says, “What?” Poole,
now slightly less friendly, replies, “Do you want to change your bullshit story,
sir?”
142
THE MAN WHO KNEW
TOO MUCH
1956
TYPE OF FILM: Suspense/Espionage

STUDIO: Paramount
SCREENWRITERS: John Michael Hayes and Angus McPhail
SOURCE: Story by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-
Lewis
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Stewart ............................................................Dr. Ben McKenna
Doris Day ...................................................................Jo McKenna
Brenda De Banzie ............................................................Mrs. Drayton
Bernard Miles ................................................................Mr. Drayton
Ralph Truman ............................................................................Buchanan
Daniel Gelin ................................................................Louis Bernard
Alan Mowbray .................................................................Val Parnell
Hillary Brooke ...............................................................Jan Peterson
DID YOU KNOW? There were two versions of The Man Who Knew Too
Much, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The first was made in England in 1934
and had a more action-packed ending than the later film, in which the kidnaped
boy is rescued from a foreign consulate by his father, acting virtually alone. In the
British version, the police attack the spy ring in a house, in a scene that recreates
an actual historical event, the Sidney Street siege.
A few years before the first World War, some Russian anarchists had barri-
caded themselves in a house and were shooting at the police, who were trying to
get them out. The police were making little progress so soldiers were called in,
and Winston Churchill, then the head of the London police, was called in to take
143
charge of the operation. The police had had little success because British po-
licemen do not carry firearms, requiring the military presence. As the anarchists
continued to hold out, Churchill was about to call in the artillery, when the
house caught fire and the anarchists came running out.
When The Man Who Knew Too Much was made, Hitchcock ran into diffi-
culty because British authorities did not want to see policemen carrying or
using firearms. When Hitchcock asked how he was going to get the spy ring
out of the house, it was suggested that water hoses be used—the same idea
that Churchill had advanced many years before. Finally, it was agreed that the
police could use firearms if the screen showed them going to the local gunsmith
to pick out antique weapons, demonstrating that they were unfamiliar with
modern weaponry. Hitchcock ignored the silly directive and had a truck loaded
with rifles pull up to supply the policemen.
THE STORY: American tourists Dr. Ben McKenna, his wife Jo and their
young son, Hank, are in Marrakesh on the bus from the airport where they meet
a Frenchman and later befriend an English couple. Bernard, the Frenchman, is
stabbed in a crowded marketplace and whispers dying words into Ben’s ear,
telling him that he is a French agent and giving him information about a planned
assassination attempt of an important politician in London.
The McKenna’s son is kidnapped soon after by the British couple, who are
in fact foreign agents. Warned that their son will be harmed if they reveal a
single word of the Frenchman’s message, Ben and Jo head to London to try to
recover their son and, if possible, prevent the assassination.
They learn that the attempt will be made at Albert Hall during a concert, at the
precise moment that cymbals crash. Just before that musical moment, Jo screams,
causing the assassin to miss his mark. A grateful prime minister invites the
Americans to his embassy that evening. Knowing now that their son is captive
there, they go. As Jo, a famous singer before her marriage, provides a concert,
which includes “Que Sera, Sera,” her signature song, her son hears it and
whistles the same tune, leading Ben to the room in which he is being held. As
the agent tries to sneak out of the embassy with Ben and Hank as hostages, he
tumbles down the staircase and the family is happily reunited.
144
***
Film critics often state their preference for the earlier version, which is also
excellent. It was made in 1934 and starred Leslie Banks, Edna Best, and Peter
Lorre. A major reason given for finding the second version inferior is that it is
longer, has more elaborate sets, and is dramatically bigger. Hitchcock himself,
however, much preferred the second film. He told Francois Truffaut that “the first
version is the work of a talented amateur, and the second was made by a profes-
sional.”
“Que Sera, Sera,” the song sung by Doris Day several times during the film,
was a number one hit single in America and became her signature song. It won an
Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The idea of the shot being fired just as the cymbals clash was inspired by a
cartoon strip showing a man waking up in the morning and going through all the
rituals of the day, getting on a bus to Albert Hall, carrying his instrument case (a
flute, in this instance) into the hall, opening it, taking his seat, taking out the
score, and dutifully turning pages until the conductor finally points to him and he
blows out his single note, then packs up, puts on his hat and coat, and gets on
the bus to go home, filling his entire day. Hitchcock thought it would be amusing
to get a suspense effect from one clash of cymbals.
The Man Who Knew Too Much was a stunning financial success. After being
released for only one week, it was already the most commercially successful film
of the year. In his first year as an American citizen, Hitchcock earned $4,000,000,
and his financial advisers arranged enough tax shelters so that he paid not a cent
in income tax.
BEST LINE: Meeting the McKennas on a bus in Marrakesh, Louis Bernard
tells them he is French. Hank asks if he eats snails, and Bernard says he does,
when he is lucky enough. The young boy then tells him if he is ever hungry, their
garden back home has a lot of snails. “We’ve tried everything to get rid of them,”
he offers, “but we never thought of a Frenchman.”
145
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
1967

PRODUCER: Walter Mirisch
DIRECTOR: Norman Jewison
SCREENWRITER: Stirling Silliphant
SOURCE: In the Heat of the Night, novel by John Ball
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Sidney Poitier .................................................................Virgil Tibbs
Rod Steiger ..................................................................Bill Gillespie
Warren Oates ..................................................................Sam Wood
Lee Grant ..............................................................Mrs. Leslie Colbert
Scott Wilson ................................................................Harvey Obers
Larry Gates .................................................................Eric Endicott
James Patterson ...................................................................Purdy
Quentin Dean ..............................................................Delores Purdy
William Schallert ............................................................Webb Schubert
Beah Richards ....................................................Mrs. Bellamy/Mama Caleba
DID YOU KNOW? John Ball, the author of the book on which In the Heat of
the Night was based, may have been one of the luckiest men who ever lived. He
had an undistinguished career as a writer of various types of action novels when
his first Virgil Tibbs book was submitted to Joan Kahn, the legendary editor at
Harper & Row. Perhaps the finest mystery editor ever to have worked in the field,
she made extensive notes and had the author rewrite over and over again, forcing
him to follow her meticulously thought-out plot, character, and dialogue
enhancements. The book went on to win the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the
Mystery Writers of America, and film rights were acquired for a very large sum.
Reviews of the novel were glowing, suggesting that Tibbs might be worthy of
acceptance into the pantheon of Great Detectives. When the second novel was
submitted, Kahn again suggested major changes and rewrites, only to have Ball
146
refuse to do them. After all, he claimed, he’d already won an Edgar, had great
reviews, and sold motion-picture rights for a ton of money, so he didn’t really
need her help. Needless to say, the second book, and the handful that followed,
were critical and commercial failures, and Ball (and Tibbs) are remembered today
only for that first book and the brilliant film made from it.
THE STORY: In the little cotton town of Sparta, Mississippi, Leslie Colbert, a
wealthy industrialist who planned a big new factory employing a thousand people,
half of them black, is found bludgeoned to death in an alley on a hot summer
night. Virgil Tibbs is picked up at the train station for no reason except that he is
a Negro. After Tibbs is hauled off to jail, sheriff Bill Gillespie discovers that Tibbs
is a police officer from Philadelphia in town to visit his mother. As a homicide
expert, Tibbs is asked by his boss to stay and help with the case, to the disgust
of the sheriff. As the object of hatred of the mostly bigoted white town, Tibbs,
who is equally prejudiced against whites, decides to return home but is tricked
into staying by Gillespie, who taunts him by saying, “You’re so damn smart . . .
smarter than any white man . . . I don’t think you could let an opportunity like that
pass by.”
A suspect has been hunted down and arrested for the murder because he has
Colbert’s wallet on him, but he protests that he merely picked it up from alongside
the dead man’s body, and Tibbs quickly proves him innocent. The dead man’s
widow uses her influence to ensure that Tibbs will stay on the case, and he
becomes convinced that the true murderer is Eric Endicott, the wealthiest man in
town. Angered by Tibbs’s questioning, he slaps the policeman, and Tibbs slaps
him back. Soon thereafter, gangs of rednecks chase Tibbs, ready to beat him to
get him out of town.
Next to be arrested for the murder is Sam Wood, Gillespie’s deputy, who has
been accused of getting the town’s sixteen-year-old tease pregnant. Tibbs visits
the local abortionist, Mama Caleba, and encounters the girl and the true father,
the counter man at the diner, who finally confesses that he murdered Colbert for
the money to pay for the abortion.
With the case solved, Gillespie takes Tibbs to the train station, even carrying
his suitcase for him, and the men shake hands in mutual respect.
***
147
In 1967, just as the civil-rights movement was gaining steam, this was the
perfect film for the time. A handsome, confident, articulate black man is sur-
rounded by stupid, loutish rednecks who use racial epithets and violence at
every opportunity, while he maintains composure and proves to be their intellec-
tual and moral superior. Regarded as a milestone in liberal media, it was bound to
be a success, and it was, grossing nearly $11,000,000 (back in the time when that
was considered real money in Hollywood).
The great success of In the Heat of the Night spawned two sequels, They Call
Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971), both of which again starred
Sidney Poitier as the perfect man. The former had terrible reviews but did pretty
well at the box office, the latter had better reviews but sold fewer tickets.
Some years later, NBC aired a two-hour remake of In the Heat of the Night, with
Howard E. Rollins as Tibbs and Carroll O’Connor as Gillespie. Critics wondered
why anyone thought this was needed, but it was successful enough to foster a
one-hour television series that enjoyed success.
Academy Awards went to the film for Best Picture, Rod Steiger for Best Actor,
and Sterling Silliphant for Best Adapted Screenplay. Awards were also won for
editing and sound. Norman Jewison was nominated for Best Director. Sterling
Silliphant also received the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of
America for his screenplay.
BEST LINE: Tibbs and Gillespie have just left the home of Eric Endicott, the
rich but bigoted cotton grower who pretty much owns the town of Sparta. With
the merest hint of evidence, Tibbs is convinced that Endicott is the murderer and
wants to prove it. He has been slapped and has slapped back, so Gillespie warns
him he’ll have to get out of town, but the furious Tibbs begs him to let him stay
a day or two. “I can pull that fat cat down,” he rages at the sheriff. “I can bring him
right off this hill.” Gillespie pauses and says, “Man, you’re just like the rest of us,
ain’t ya?”
148
BONNIE AND CLYDE
1967
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Warner Brothers—Seven Arts
PRODUCER: Warren Beatty
DIRECTOR: Arthur Penn
SCREENWRITERS: David Newman and Robert Benton
SOURCE: Original, based on real-life characters
and events
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Warren Beatty ...............................................................Clyde Barrow
Faye Dunaway ..............................................................Bonnie Parker
Michael J. Pollard ..............................................................C. W. Moss
Gene Hackman ...............................................................Buck Barrow
Estelle Parsons .............................................................Blanche Barrow
Gene Wilder ..............................................................Eugene Grizzard
Dub Taylor ....................................................................Ivan Moss
Denver Pyle ..........................................................Captain Frank Hamer
Evans Evans ..................................................................Velma Davis
DID YOU KNOW? There is less attention paid to actual historical fact in
Bonnie and Clyde than there is in an Oliver Stone movie.
MOVIE: Bonnie Parker hooks up with Clyde Barrow when she catches him
trying to steal her mother’s car. HISTORY: She met him while working as a wait-
ress in a greasy-spoon luncheonette where she slung hash when she wasn’t
working as a prostitute.
MOVIE: After their first robbery, Bonnie is so sexually aroused that she prac-
tically attacks Clyde, only to be rebuffed, as he appears to be impotent; the angry
Bonnie clearly believes him to be homosexual. HISTORY: Barrow was bisexual,
using several of his male gang members as sex partners.
MOVIE: At a bank robbery, Barrow asks a patron if some money belongs to him
149
or the bank. When he says it’s his, Barrow tells him to keep it. HISTORY: This
gesture was actually made by John Dillinger.
MOVIE: When they capture a Texas Ranger, they take pictures with him, then
handcuff him and set him adrift in a rowboat. HISTORY: They killed every police
officer they could, without mercy. Bonnie once shot a traffic cop in the head for
fun as they drove by and, on another occasion, killed a motorcycle cop on a
whim, then drove their car back and forth over his dead body.
MOVIE: Broke and hungry, they stop at an encampment, where the poor Okies
give them food and water. HISTORY: Bonnie, Clyde, and the whole gang were
despised and feared by their families, neighbors, and acquaintances, as they
routinely robbed and shot them. The real-life Robin Hood of that era was Pretty
Boy Floyd.
THE STORY: In the Depression-era South, Bonnie Parker spots Clyde Barrow
trying to steal her mother’s car and, impressed with his manner and bored with
her small-town life, decides to run away with him. They commit one amateur
stickup after another with small takings and decide to add a driver to help them,
picking up C. W. Moss, the somewhat dim mechanic at a gas station they happen
to pull into. They finally connect with Clyde’s brother, Buck, recently out of
prison, and his wife, the nervous daughter of a preacher.
Escalating their robberies from grocery stores to banks and adding murder to
their list of crimes, the gang becomes the object of a large cross-country man-
hunt. When they escape from a huge cadre of police who have surrounded their
hideout, their legend grows and they announce who they are whenever they
hold up a bank.
With a sense of impending doom, Bonnie insists they visit her mother, and the
gang is surrounded by police again. This time Buck is killed, his wife is partially
blinded, and Bonnie is wounded. They hide out with Moss’s father, who turns in
the gang in an attempt to make a good deal for his son. When Bonnie and Clyde
see Moss’s father’s truck broken down, they stop to help and quickly realize they
have been set up for an ambush by the police, who gun them down in a barrage
of bullets.
***
Bonnie and Clyde was a highly controversial film when it was released, and it
still is today. It was both excorciated for its excessive and graphic violence and
150
applauded for its portrayal of these symbols of the alienation and dehumaniza-
tion felt by many Americans in the 1960s. Many viewers and some critics also
found it distasteful to glorify and glamorize two of the most cold-blooded killers
in American history.
The film helped to make huge stars of its two principals. Warren Beatty is
reported to have gotten on his knees to beg Jack Warner to finance the picture
after two studios turned it down. Faye Dunaway, after two failures (The Happen-
ing and Hurry, Sundown), returned $25,000 of her $60,000 fee in exchange for
billing above the title.
Bonnie Parker’s sister sued Warren Beatty and Warner Brothers for—get this—
blackening Bonnie’s memory and exposing her to hatred and ridicule.
In perhaps the most virulent review of his long and distinguished career, Bosley
Crowther of The New York Times wrote: It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slap-
stick that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though
they were as full of fun as the Jazz Age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Ten Academy Award nominations went to the film, including Best Picture, Best
Director (Arthur Penn), Best Actor (Warren Beatty), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway),
Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), and others, winning only for Best Sup-
porting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography. After the film lost in
virtually every category, Beatty mumbled, “We wuz robbed.”
BEST LINE: Clyde Barrow has pulled into a gas station and attempts to recruit
C. W. Moss to join him and Bonnie Parker. “I know you got the nerve to shortchange
old ladies coming in for gas,” he says to the mechanic. “But what I’m asking is, do
you have what it takes to pull bank jobs with us?”
151
SCARFACE
1932
TYPE OF FILM: Gangster

DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks
SCREENWRITERS: Ben Hecht (story), Seton I. Miller,
John Lee Mahin, W. R. Burnett
(Continuity and dialogue), and Fred
Pasley (adaptation)
SOURCE: Scarface, novel based on the life of Al
Capone, by Armitage Trail
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Paul Muni .................................................................Tony Camonte
Ann Dvorak ...............................................................Cesca Camonte
George Raft ................................................................Guino Rinaldo
Boris Karloff .....................................................................Gaffney
Karen Morley .....................................................................Poppy
Vince Barnett ....................................................................Angelo
Osgood Perkins ..............................................................Johnny Lovo
C. Henry Gordon .................................................................Guarino
Parnell Pratt ....................................................................publisher
Tully Marshall ................................................................................managing editor
DID YOU KNOW? While director Howard Hawks was still in production on
Scarface, which had been closely based on the life and crimes of Al Capone,
several of the gangster’s “associates” paid a visit to Hawks and asked to see the
film. Hawks famously told them that when the picture came out, Capone could
buy a ticket like everyone else. The ensuing conversation appears to be
unreported, but Hawks was persuaded to change his mind and showed a rough
cut to the film aficionados. They loved it and reported back to Capone.
THE STORY: Tony Camonte (the real-life Al Capone) shoots Italian mob boss
Big Louie Costillo, initiating mob wars for control of the bootlegging business on
Chicago’s South Side. The ambitious Tony next kills the North Side boss as well,
152
FBI Agent Clarice Starling (JODIE FOSTER) explores the mind of serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter
(ANTHONY HOPKINS) in The Silence of the Lambs. (Copyright © 1990 Orion Pictures Corporation.
Supplied by Photofest.)
Private eye Sam Spade (HUMPHREY BOGART) demands answers about The Maltese Falcon from
Casper Gutman (SYDNEY GREENSTREET) while Joel Cairo (PETER LORRE) looks on. (Copyright ©
1941 Warner Brothers, Inc. Supplied by Photofest.)
Injured photographer L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries
(JAMES STEWART) and his girlfriend, Lisa Carol
Freemont (GRACE KELLY) glance through the
Rear Window to watch the events in other apart-
ments. (Copyright © 1954 Paramount Pictures
Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.) Bennett
Marco (FRANK SINATRA) tries to determine
the nature of the nightmares he’s been having by questioning fellow Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw
(LAURENCE HARVEY) in the screen adaptation of Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate.
(Copyright © 1962 United Artists. Supplied by Photofest.) Black marketeer Harry Lime (ORSON WELLES)
on the run from the law in The Third Man. (Copyright © 1949 London Films. Supplied by Photofest.)
Marion Crane (JANET LEIGH) discovers—much to her dismay—why the Bates Motel has so few
guests in Psycho. (Copyright © 1960 Paramount Pictures Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.)
Ready for her close-up: Aging silent-film star Norma Desmond (GLORIA SWANSON) dramatically
descends a staircase in the climax of Sunset Boulevard. (Copyright © 1950 Paramount Pictures
Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.)
A portrait of Laura: New York City detective Mark McPherson (DANA ANDREWS) comes face-to-face
with the object of his obsession (GENE TIERNEY) in the screen adaptation of Vera Caspary’s novel.
(Copyright © 1944 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.)
“Mr. Pink” (STEVE BUSCEMI) and “Mr. White” (HARVEY KEITEL) come to a deadly disagreement in
Reservoir Dogs. (Copyright © 1992 Miramax Films. Supplied by Photofest.)
Who is Keyser Soze? One of these men (l. to r., Todd Hockney [KEVIN POLLAK], Michael McManus
[STEPHEN BALDWIN], Fred Fenster [BENICIO DEL TORO], Dean Keaton [GABRIEL BYRNE], and
“Verbal” Kint [KEVIN SPACEY]) holds the answer to that question in The Usual Suspects. (Photo by
Linda R. Chen. Copyright © 1995 Gramercy Pictures. Supplied by Photofest.)
Moments after the most exciting chase scene in film history, narcotics dealer Pierre Nicoli (MARCEL
BOZZUFFI) is shot by NYPD Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (GENE HACKMAN) while trying to escape
in The French Connection. (Copyright © 1971 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.)
Making an offer he can’t refuse: Don Vito Corleone (MARLON BRANDO) in The Godfather. (Copyright
© 1972 Paramount Pictures Corporation. Supplied by Photofest.)
Despite finding out what happens to “nosy fellows,”
private eye J. J. “Jake” Gittes (JACK NICHOLSON)
continues his investigation into the secrets of
Chinatown. (Copyright © 1974 Long Road Produc-
tions. Supplied by Photofest.) They call him Mr. Tibbs:
Homicide expert Virgil Tibbs (SIDNEY POITIER) ex-
amines a piece of evidence, to the consternation of
Sparta, MS Police Chief Bill Gillepsie (ROD STIEGER)
in In the Heat of the Night. (Copyright © 1967 United
Artists. Supplied by Photofest.) San .)
Francisco detective Harry Callahan (CLINT EASTWOOD) takes aim at a sniper on the loose in Dirty
Harry. (Copyright © 1971 Warner Brothers, Inc. Supplied by Photofest
Taxi Driver Travis Bickle (ROBERT DeNIRO) prepares for his date with destiny in the climax of the New
York-set thriller. (Copyright © 1976 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Supplied by Photofest.)
FBI Agent Clarice Starling (JODIE FOSTER) explores the mind of serial killer Dr. Ha
and takes control of all Chicago for his boss, Johnny Lovo. To solidify his position,
Tony orders the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre to eliminate rival gang leaders.
Lovo is frightened of his ruthless right-hand man and sets him up to be killed, but
Tony escapes and kills Lovo instead. By killing him, Tony becomes the supreme
ruler of Chicago’s underworld.
On a more personal level, Tony sees his sister Cesca dancing with a man in a
nightclub and takes her home and beats her in a jealous rage. While Tony hides
out in Florida after killing his boss, Cesca falls in love with Guino, Tony’s best
friend, and marries him. Tony returns to find them together and, again enraged
with jealous passion for his beautiful sister, Tony kills Guino before Cesca can
explain that they are married. The police come, surround the apartment, and start
blasting. Cesca and Tony hold them off until she is shot dead and Tony, unable
to stand the tear gas, surrenders. At the last moment, he changes his mind and
decides to make a dash for freedom but falls in a hail of bullets.
***
One of the earliest and greatest of all gangster films, Scarface was a major
project as well as a major problem for Howard Hughes, president of Caddo, his
production company. The Hays Office, the censoring body for Hollywood films,
had major concerns about gangster films in general and this one in particular.
Anything that made the Al Capone character look heroic, or even human, had to
be eliminated, and references to the obvious incestuous interest of the protago-
nist toward his sister had to be removed as well. Numerous changes were made to
attempt to comply with the endless requests—at great cost to the production
company—and delayed the film’s release for nearly a year. Finally, Hughes re-
fused to make further revisions and released the film, threatening to file a lawsuit
in New York, where the most adamant censoring body opposed the film. Of the
three versions of the film, the one that was finally released, and the one that may
now be seen on video, is Hughes original version.
In preparation for the making of the film, director Howard Hawks and screen-
writer Ben Hecht interviewed real gangsters, as well as Capone’s biographer,
Fred Pasley. Hecht claimed that he based his scripts on the Borgia family of the
Italian Renaissance. It was also reported that Capone met with Hawks and, sepa-
rately, George Raft, who had reputed connections to the underworld, particularly
to Owney Madden. The famous gangster thought the film was terrific and loved
153
the publicity it gave him—Scarface was in lights on theater marquees all over the
country.
Paul Muni was outstanding as Tony, but another actor, a young song-and-
dance man, had one of his most memorable roles ever. George Raft played Tony’s
bodyguard and best friend, Guino, and Hawks had the idea of having him flip a
coin in the air and catch it. Raft practiced so hard that he could do it without
looking, and it became a little acting trick that indelibly imprinted the character.
The coin, incidentally, was a nickel, not a quarter as usually stated.
Scarface was remade in 1983 with Al Pacino in an over-the-top orgy of violence
and excess, with mobsters transformed from Italians to Cubans.
BEST LINE: On his swift and ruthless rise to the top of gangland Chicago,
Tony took as his motto the words from the Cook’s Tour sign outside his window:
THE WORLD IS YOURS. When he is gunned down trying to escape, he dies
beneath the sign. The last words of Scarface are: “The world is yours.”
154
GOLDFINGER
1964
TYPE OF FILM: Espionage/Crime

PRODUCERS: Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli
DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
SCREENWRITERS: Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn
SOURCE: Goldfinger, a novel by Ian Fleming
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Sean Connery .......................................................James Bond
Gert Frobe ......................................................Auric Goldfinger
Honor Blackman ....................................................Pussy Galore
Tania Mallet ......................................................Tilly Masterson
Harold Sakata ...........................................................Oddjob
Bernard Lee ................................................................M
Lois Maxwell .........................................................Miss Moneypenny
Shirley Eaton ......................................................Jill Masterson
Martin Benson ..............................................................Solo
Cec Linder ..........................................................Felix Leiter
DID YOU KNOW? Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was himself a
member of the British Secret Service for some years. He began writing the books
about Secret Agent 007 in 1956 with Casino Royale, but the books had only
modest success until President John F. Kennedy endorsed them. After that they
became international best-sellers, and the movies inspired by them, beginning
with Dr. No in 1962, became enormous box-office smashes.
THE STORY: Auric Goldfinger, who has loved gold since he was young, has
amassed great wealth and bought as much gold privately as possible. Aided by
his Korean henchman, Oddjob, whose innocuous, even comical bowler is a deadly
weapon, he plots to infiltrate Fort Knox, the American depository of a vast gold
reserve. Goldfinger doesn’t plan to steal it but to cause it to be radioactive and
therefore worthless, thereby enhancing the value of his own holdings to make
him the richest man in the world.
155
As with all the Bond movies, there are no “whodunit” elements, and even the
overall plot is merely a device for smaller bits of action. In the opening scene,
Goldfinger, unable to resist the opportunity to cheat at cards, is taking a pigeon
for a few thousand dollars as his blond girlfriend uses a telescope in a hotel
window to see his opponent’s cards and inform him via a miniature radio receiver
in his ear. Bond sneaks in, forces Goldfinger to lose a larger amount than he had
won, and seduces the girl. Goldfinger’s bodyguard, Oddjob, sneaks into Bond’s
room at night and knocks him unconscious. When Bond awakes, he finds the
girl-covered with gold paint, which has asphyxiated her.
Bond later meets another of Goldfinger’s associates, a beautiful blonde of
ambivalent sexuality. As he awakes from again having been knocked uncon-
scious, she introduces herself: “I’m Pussy Galore.” “I must be dreaming,” he
replies. Pussy and her flying circus of five gorgeous blondes spray nerve gas
over Fort Knox in preparation for the planting of Goldfinger’s bomb that will
radioactivate the gold. After the plot has been foiled, Pussy and Bond meet
again. Having once kissed him, of course Pussy turns enthusiastically hetero-
sexual, and the movie ends with her wrapped in Bond’s arms while they are both
wrapped in the silk of a parachute.
***
This is the third of the James Bond movies, all of which starred Sean Connery,
and is typical of the series. Though it may be the best, an argument could be
made that From Russia With Love is its equal. The opening credits are exquisitely
handled, especially with the title song sung by Shirley Bassey; the reassuringly
familiar figures of M and Miss Moneypenny are like coming home to 221B Baker
Street and finding Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson waiting; and then there are the
gadgets.
Bond maintains a look of extreme nonchalance, if not boredom, as Q describes
the new Aston Martin and its enhancements for him: bulletproof glass, of course,
but also machine guns from the headlights, tracking devices, and—Bond’s fa-
vorite—a top that comes off so that the ejector seat can do its job.
While some viewers decry the sex and violence of the Bond films, the almost
cartoonlike savagery of the villains, the total absence of blood, and the witty
insouciance of the hero make them the most entertaining series of the 1960s and
indeed have sustained sufficient energy to keep them successful into the 1990s.
156
BEST LINE: The best line in all of the Sean Connery James Bond films is
probably the same one: He introduces himself memorably as “Bond. James Bond.”
In this film, he learns that his foe is to be Auric Goldfinger. He responds, “Sounds
like a French nail polish.”
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I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A
CHAIN GANG
1932

DIRECTOR: Mervyn LeRoy
SCREENWRITERS: Howard J. Green, Brown Holmes, and (uncredited)
Sheridan Gibney
SOURCE: I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, the
autobiography of Robert E. Burns
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Paul Muni ................................................James Allen/Allen James
Glenda Farrell ......................................................Marie Woods
Helen Vinson ............................................................Helen
Noel Francis .............................................................Linda
Preston Foster .............................................................Pete
Edward Ellis ..................................bomber
Allen Jenkins ......................................................Barney Sykes
Berton Churchill ...................................................................................judge
David Landan ...........................................................warden
DID YOU KNOW? Robert E. Burns escaped from the Campbell County Prison
Camp in Georgia and wrote his autobiography, which castigated the chain gang
system as overly cruel. His story was serialized in True Detective Mysteries
magazine in 1931 before its publication in book form in 1932. It was once rumored
that while Burns was making a publicity appearance, he was recaptured and sent
back to prison. However, the truth is that he settled in New Jersey as a tax
consultant, and three governors refused to extradite him. In 1945, twenty-five
years after his arrest, the governor of Georgia commuted his sentence to time
served. Burns had stolen $5.29. He died of cancer in 1955. The warden of the
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Campbell County Prison Camp sued Warner Brothers after the release of the film
because of the manner in which he was depicted, but the suit was dismissed by
the Fulton County Superior Court. The chain-gang system was not abolished
until 1937—five years after the release of the movie.
THE STORY: James Allen returns from World War I and is unable to find work
because of the scarcity of jobs. In a situation that he is unable to control, he
participates in a robbery, during which the real crook is killed. He is captured and
sentenced to serve ten years on a southern chain gang. The brutal conditions
wear him down and he enlists the help of a fellow convict to remove his shackles
and enable him to run away. He gets free and flees, with armed guards and dogs
chasing him through the Georgia countryside. Allen escapes to Chicago and
becomes a successful construction contractor, living a normal life until Marie, his
landlady, discovers the truth about him and forces him to marry her. Later, he
meets Helen and falls in love with her. When he asks Marie for a divorce, she
refuses and, enraged, turns him in to the authorities. When the state of Illinois
refuses to extradite him, the officials at the prison from which he escaped offer
him a deal: If he turns himself in, he will receive a full pardon after ninety days.
Eager to put the past behind him, he agrees but quickly learns that he was lied to.
When his requests for parole are refused, he escapes again. As a wanted fugitive,
he cannot return home and must live on the outskirts of society. He cautiously
sees Helen one more time and, when she asks him how he lives, he tells her, “I
steal.”
***
Unlike the other movies about criminals made in the 1930s, this dark film is not
about the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious psychopath but is the tragic story of
a decent man caught in a web of circumstances that batter him at every turn. It is
one of the purest examples of filmmaking that shows how American society can
force a man into a life of crime and violence. As a result, it was one of only three
American films that were permitted to be shown in the Soviet Union (Cabin in the
South was one of the others because it “exploited oppression of poor whites in
the South”).
Paul Muni, fresh from playing the vicious titular character in Scarface, here
plays an entirely different role, a victim oppressed by the same system that
Scarface used to gain a fortune. For his role as the hunted convict, Muni was
159
nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor (losing to Charles Laughton in
The Private Life of Henry VIII). The film also received an Oscar nomination for
Best Picture (losing to Cavalcade). It was named Best Picture of the Year by the
National Board of Review.
Immediately after Muni delivered his famous and still shocking last line—“I
steal,”—the electricity in the studio failed, knocking out the klieg light. The
resulting slow fade at the end of the film was so effective that director Mervyn
LeRoy decided not to reshoot it.
Burns’s autobiography was remade for television as The Man Who Broke
1,000 Chains.
BEST LINE: James Allen, on the run after escaping from prison a second time,
visits his girlfriend one last time before resuming his life in the shadows. “No
friends, no rest, no peace,” he says to her. “That all that’s left for me.” She asks,
“Can’t you tell me where you’re going? Do you need money? How do you live?”
He responds, “I steal.”
160
THE MANCHURIAN
CANDIDATE
1962

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Howard W. Koch
PRODUCERS: George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer
DIRECTOR: John Frankenheimer
SCREENWRITER: George Axelrod
SOURCE: The Manchurian Candidate, novel by
Richard Condon
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Frank Sinatra ......................................................Bennett Marco
Laurence Harvey ..................................................Raymond Shaw
Janet Leigh ..............................................................Rosie
Angela Lansbury .................Raymond Shaw’s mother
Henry Silva ........................................................................................Chunjin
James Gregory .................................................Senator John Iselin
John McGiver ..............................................Senator Thomas Jordan
Leslie Parrish .......................................................Jocie Jordan
Khigh Deigh ............................................................Yen Lo
DID YOU KNOW? The casting of Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian
Candidate was at the same time a brilliant and puzzling move. She gave a
memorable performance as the manipulative and dominating mother of Raymond
Shaw, the brain-washed former Army sergeant who has been programmed to kill
at the direction of his Communist puppet master—who happens to be his mother.
The performance was remarkable enough to earn her an Academy Award
nomination (she lost to Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker). But what is perhaps
most remarkable is that she was only one year older than Laurence Harvey, who
played her son.
161
THE STORY: During the Korean War, a patrol of U.S. soldiers is captured and
sent to Manchuria, where the Chinese Communists brainwash them. Upon their
return to the United States, Sergeant Raymond Shaw is given a Congressional
Medal of Honor for his courageous action in battle, as attested by the other
members of the patrol. In fact, the incident never occurred; they have all been
brainwashed into thinking it did. Furthermore, Shaw has been instilled with
triggered-response patterns, set off by the sight of the queen of diamonds, which
command him to do the bidding of his superiors with no memory of his subsequent
actions. When he kills he has no guilt, because he has no memory of committing
the deed.
Shaw establishes himself as a journalist and is soon turned over to the head of
a major Communist operation. The operative is his own ambitious mother, who
plots to have her son assassinate a presidential nominee so that her husband,
Senator Iselin, the vice-presidential nominee, will be in control of the United
States after the assured election.
Another member of the patrol, Bennett Marco, has recurring nightmares of the
time in Manchuria and begins to remember certain events and notices the strange
behavior of Shaw when he sees the playing card. He discusses his dreams with
the other men on patrol and they share his memories, leading to an Army inves-
tigation of Shaw. Shaw advances his mother’s plan by killing his wife and his
father-in-law, Thomas Jordan, a liberal senator who is the prime opponent for
Iselin.
When Marco figures out the plot, he tries to convince Shaw that he no longer
has control over his own mind, but the mindless robot follows his mother’s
orders and takes his rifle to the assassination point, only to have the hypnotic
spell broken at the last moment. He kills his mother and stepfather, and then
himself.
***
The Manchurian Candidate was made by staunch supporters of John F.
Kennedy, who was himself a great fan of the Richard Condon novel on which the
film was based. Their counterattack on Joseph McCarthy and his anti-Commu-
nist crusade was done in usual Hollywood fashion: the right-wing senator Iselin
is portrayed as so moronic that he cannot remember a number when he speaks of
the number of “card-carrying Communists” in the Defense Department, chang-
162
ing it every time the subject comes up and finally asking his manipulative and
domineering wife to give him a nice easy number to remember. The liberal Senator
Jordan, on the other hand, is portrayed as kindly, gentle, and principled, as well
as a good father of a sweet and lovely girl.
The overall politics of the film are confusing, however. Clearly the villains are
the Communists in China and the Soviet Union, who commit unspeakably ruth-
less acts. The head of their operation in America is Raymond Shaw’s mother, who
is manipulating the election so that her fascist husband can be president. She is
outraged that her Communist bosses have used her son as the weapon by which
their plans will come to fruition. But is their plan to have a right-winger as presi-
dent? Or is the plan Mrs. Iselin’s own, electing her lunatic-right husband to the
presidency as a rebuke to those who destroyed her son? Ultimately, the film
seems to warn about extremists on both ends of the political spectrum, placing its
faith in the American security system.
A corollary may be drawn between The Manchurian Candidate and 2001: A
Space Odyssey. In both films, humans create a perfect machine in which they are
totally confident and dependent. In one case, it is an altered human who has been
made into a robot. In the other, it is a machine made of metal and plastic. In both
cases, the machines turn on their creators and destroy them. Is there a lesson
here?
In the fight scene in which Frank Sinatra (as Bennett Marco) has it out with
Henry Silva (as Chunjin), a lack of adequate rehearsal and practice proved to be
a problem. In one bit of action, Silva moved the wrong way and Sinatra slammed
his hand onto a tabletop. But it was not a fake table designed to splinter on
impact. it was a real table, and Sinatra hit it hard enough to break the top—as well
as the finger on his right hand.
BEST LINE: Raymond Shaw tells Bennett Marco: “It’s a terrible thing to hate
your mother. But I didn’t always hate her. When I was a child, I only kind of
disliked her.”
163
MEAN STREETS
1973
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: E. Lee Perry
PRODUCER: Jonathan T. Taplin
SCREENWRITERS: Martin Scorsese and Mardik
Martin
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert De Niro .......................................................Johnny Boy
Harvey Keitel ...........................................................Charlie
David Proval ..............................................................Tony
Amy Robinson ...........................................................Teresa
Richard Romanus ........................................................Michael
Cesare Danova .........................................................Giovanni
Victor Argo ..............................................................Mario
George Memmoli ..........................................................Joey
Martin Scorsese ....................................................man in the car
DID YOU KNOW? It is blindingly clear that none of the main characters in
Mean Streets is Rhodes Scholarship material. The bloody battle in Joe Catucci’s
pool hall is caused by the insult of the word mook and it is likely that no one—not
the audience, and not the characters in the movie—knows what it actually means.
The fact is, it doesn’t mean anything, except in some isolated Brooklyn
neighborhoods. Director Martin Scorsese heard about a fight over the word in
one of the neighborhoods and thought it was funny, so he used it in the film.
In Harvey Keitel’s high school in Brooklyn, neighborhood kids developed a
vernacular that did not travel far. A Gropo was a dope, and a Mook was even
dimmer than a Gropo. A Harvey, in contrast, was someone to whom everything
came easily. Lou Gossett, Jr., who also came from Keitel’s neighborhood, in-
164
vented the term Harvey Mookie—a person who is really good at being stupid. It
has been heard in recent years on NYPD Blue, with the added connotation of
dishonesty, so when Andy Sipowitz says he’ll talk to the mook privately, he
means he knows he has a moronic crook in custody and he’s preparing to beat or
frighten some truth out of him.
THE STORY: Johnny Boy and Tony are second-generation Italian punks living
in Little Italy, where they survive on the fringes of the law by running numbers,
loan sharking, and anything else that involves a few bucks.
Charlie is a natty dresser who still lives with his parents but is having an affair
with Teresa, Johnny Boy’s epileptic cousin. Johnny Boy is a volatile loner who is
deeply in debt to Michael, the suave but dangerous neighborhood bookie. Tony
runs a bar where the neighborhood hoods hang out.
When Johnny Boy demeans Michael in front of the others at the bar, his life is
in danger. The bookie is already enraged because he can’t collect Johnny Boy’s
debt, which grows rapidly because Johnny Boy isn’t even trying to pay the
vigorish (interest). Johnny Boy asks Charlie to intercede with his uncle, a Ma-
fioso, but Charlie doesn’t want to bother his powerful uncle with such a trivial
matter and offers to hide his pal in Brooklyn instead. Tony borrows a car to take
them where it will be safer, and Teresa joins them at the last moment.
As they pull away, they are followed by the murderous Michael and two gun-
men, who open fire on the car with an endless torrent of bullets.
***
Much like GoodFellas and The Godfather films, this portrait of gangsterdom is
not driven by a single narrative but by a series of vignettes that ultimately pro-
vide a picture of each of the characters, their surroundings, and the lives they
lead. Unlike the Corleone family and its associates, these characters have no
cultivation, no Machiavellian schemes, no brains, and no future. They are doomed
from the outset—doomed to die or to continue to live as borderline survivors in
the gutters and alleys of Little Italy.
The title Mean Streets is an ironic homage to Raymond Chandler, whose bril-
liant essay likening the honorable private detective to a knight famously bears
the phrase, Down these mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean. . . .
The gunman in the back of Michael’s car is Martin Scorsese in his Hitchcockian
165
cameo. The director’s other trademark is a brief scene for his mother, who is the
woman who comes to Teresa’s aid when she has an epileptic fit.
George Memmoli, who played Joey, the owner of the pool hall, had been a
member of The Ace Trucking Company comedy ensemble. He dropped out of
comedy and acting for a career in home renovation and died in 1985 due to
complications connected to his obesity; he weighed more than 500 pounds.
BEST (REPEATABLE) LINE: Charlie, attempting to convey some of his
philosophy: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets.
You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.”
166
DIRTY HARRY
1971

PRODUCER: Don Siegel
DIRECTOR: Don Siegel
SCREENWRITERS: Harry Julian Fink, Rita M. Fink, and Dean
Riesner
SOURCE: Unpublished story by Harry Julian Fink and Rita
Fink
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Clint Eastwood ....................................................Harry Callahan
Harry Guardino ................................................Lieutenant Bressler
Reni Santoni ......................................................Chico Gonzalez
Andy Robinson ..........................................................Scorpio
John Larch ...............................................................Chief
John Mitchum ........................................................DeGeorgio
John Vernon .............................................................Mayor
Mae Mercer .........................................................Mrs. Russell
Lyn Edgington ...........................................................Norma
Ruth Kobart ..........................................................bus driver
Woodrow Parfrey ........................................................Mr. Jaffe
DID YOU KNOW? The role that made him a Hollywood superstar nearly didn’t
go to Clint Eastwood. The story of Dirty Harry had been planned for Paul Newman
at Universal Pictures, but when that didn’t work out it was taken on by Frank
Sinatra. Irving Kirschner was hired to direct the motion picture, then titled Dead
Right. When Sinatra suffered a hand injury, the role of Harry Callahan was offered
to John Wayne, who turned it down. Clint Eastwood’s production company,
Malpaso Productions, then acquired the rights to the screenplay, and the rest is
history. Although Eastwood had enjoyed a huge career boost and many happy
167
paydays making westerns in Italy for Sergio Leone, he did not move into the elite
of Hollywood’s players until Dirty Harry.
THE STORY: A psychopathic sniper in San Francisco attempts to hold the city
hostage unless his demands are met. At first, he demands $100,000 or he will
shoot one citizen a day. When he isn’t paid, he escalates the demand to $200,000
to reveal the location of a teenaged girl he kidnapped and buried alive. Unable to
capture him in traditional ways, the mayor and police chief call in the experienced
but unpredictable Harry Callahan to pay off the killer, who calls himself Scorpio.
Callahan and his new partner, a young Mexican named Chico, go to deliver the
ransom. Scorpio surprises Callahan from behind and beats him viciously until
Chico comes out of hiding, only to be machine-gunned by the killer. Callahan
manages to stab him in the leg with a pocketknife, but he escapes. Callahan tracks
him to a football stadium, torturing a confession and the location of the buried
girl out of him, but when she is found she is already dead.
When the killer is brought in, the District Attorney reprimands Callahan for
violating Scorpio’s civil rights, and he is released. Chico, recuperating from his
wounds, quits the police force in disgust. Scorpio hires a thug to have himself
beat up so that he can go to the media with the story that “Dirty Harry” was
responsible.
Scorpio strikes again, kidnapping a school bus and demanding a ransom plus
an airplane for an escape. Callahan, now officially off the case, nonetheless goes
after the killer, who crashes the bus and, as Callahan continues to chase him,
takes a young boy hostage, holding a gun to his head and warning Callahan to
drop his gun. Instead, the cop shoots Scorpio, wounding him as the gun falls to
the ground and the boy escapes. Callahan gives him the choice of surrendering
or reaching for the gun. It is possible, he tells the desperate killer, that he has used
all six of his bullets. Scorpio goes for the gun and Callahan shoots him, then
disgustedly throws his badge away.
***
The killer and the events were drawn from real life, with Scorpio loosely mod-
eled on the notorious Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco.
Before the role of Scorpio was given to Andy Robinson (the son of Edward G.
Robinson), Audie Murphy had been considered. Murphy, a World War II hero,
had gone to Hollywood after his heroics and made several western and war
168
movies, but he died in an airplane crash in May of 1971 and the role went to
Robinson.
Dirty Harry was a seminal motion picture with its depiction of screen violence
being committed by a policeman who was not also corrupt. While tough vigilante
cops who are as violent as the criminals they chase have become a staple of
television and movies since the release of Dirty Harry, it was shocking at the
time, especially coming as it did in the very liberal climate of the early 1970s.
Paving the way for the even greater violence of Death Wish and its sequels,
and indeed for the subsequent Harry Callahan movies, Dirty Harry was a favorite
target of the liberal media, which deplored its police brutality and accused it of
other social insensitivities.
After the brunt of media attacks at its release, it is amusing to read the reviews
of its four sequels, which wax nostalgic about how brilliant Dirty Harry is but
how far Eastwood and all those associated with the ensuing films have fallen.
Magnum Force (1973) was the first sequel, doing even bigger box-office busi-
ness than the original picture, and it was followed by The Enforcer (1976), Sud-
den Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988), all of which were extremely suc-
cessful commercially, in spite of increasingly hostile (almost stridently so) re-
views.
The Dirty Harry movies have enriched the language, putting some pretty good
tough guy lines into Callahan’s mouth. Both Eastwood and his director thought
the most memorable lines from any of the five films would be his response when
asked who would handle a situation and he replied that it would be just the three
of them. The apparently solitary cop elaborated: “Me. Smith. And Wesson.”
Far more frequently quoted, of course, is the plea that he makes as a punk
starts to reach for a gun. “Go ahead,” he says. “Make my day.”
Beginning another tradition, which makes it patently clear that police depart-
ments take psychological profiles of cops to be certain that they can pair the
most mismatched members of the force, the grizzled old reactionary, Harry Callahan,
has a different partner in every film, including a young Mexican, a young woman,
a black man, and an Asian-American.
BEST LINE: Although off duty, Harry Callahan notices a bank robbery in
progress and is compelled to stop it, shooting the three robbers, killing two. The
third is wounded and lying on the ground, his shotgun nearby. Callahan sees him
169
considering whether he ought to make a grab for it and says, “I know what you’re
thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the
excitement, I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 magnum, the most
powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clear off, you’ve got
to ask yourself one question . . . do I feel lucky today?”
170
LITTLE CAESAR
1930

STUDIO: First National/Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis
DIRECTOR: Mervyn LeRoy
SCREENWRITERS: Francis Faragoh and Robert E. Lee
(continuity)
SOURCE: Little Caesar, novel by W. R. Burnett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Edward G. Robinson ..........................................Enrico Cesare Bandello
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. .................................................Joe Massara
Glenda Farrell ......................................................Olga Strassoff
Stanley Fields ........................................................Sam Vittori
Sidney Blackmer .........................................................Big Boy
William Collier, Jr. .......................................................Tony Passa
Ralph Ince .................................................Diamond Pete Montana
George E. Stone ...........................................................Otero
Thomas Jackson .................................................Sergeant Flaherty
Maurice Black ...................................................Little Arnie Lorch
DID YOU KNOW? Clark Gable was supposed to be in this movie. Rumor and
revisionist memory are at odds, but it seems that director Mervyn LeRoy spotted
Gable in the Los Angeles production of a stage play, The Last Mile, and decided
he would make a perfect Joe Massara, going so far as to sign Gable to a $500
contract. But when Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production for the film, saw him he
immediately got rid of him, outraged that LeRoy had considered such a homely
actor for the part. His ears, he claimed, looked like wind socks. In Jack Warner’s
biography, he claimed that he had wanted Gable to play the part of Rico.
THE STORY: Enrico Cesare Bandello, known as Rico, leaves his small town
with his friend Joe Massara to make his fortune in Chicago. Joe wants only to be
a dancer, but Rico, captivated by the notion of the fame and wealth of the mobster
171
Diamond Pete Montana, wants to be a gangster and joins Sam Vittori’s gang, one
of the two most powerful in town. Joe gets a job dancing in a nightclub owned by
Little Arnie Lorch, head of the other big Chicago gang. During the fabulous New
Year’s Eve celebration at Lorch’s club that Joe sets up, Rico commits a robbery.
Using the daring heist as a stepping stone, Rico takes over the mob from Vittori,
and when Lorch tries to kill him and fails, Rico forces him out as well. Joe, at the
urging of his girlfriend and dance partner, Olga, wants to get out of the mob and
confronts Rico, who threatens to kill Olga if Joe leaves. Fearful for his own life
and Olga’s, Joe decides to turn state’s evidence against Rico. Rico learns of the
plan, and he sets out to kill Joe but can’t pull the trigger on his old friend. When
Rico is forced into hiding, Sergeant Flaherty tries to get him to show himself by
telling the newspapers that the little gangster is a coward. Rico belligerently calls
the police, the call is traced to his hideout, and the police come en masse and
shoot him dead.
***
While there had been a few gangster movies before Little Caesar, this thinly
disguised portrait of Al Capone is conceded to have been the impetus for a flood
of similar gangster epics that flourished in the early 1930s. This uniquely Ameri-
can movie genre had a short life, however, because the end of Prohibition changed
America, essentially breaking the power of the mobs, whose major income source
had been bootleg alcohol.
Edward G. Robinson had been a bit-part player and wanted the role of Rico
Bandello. He had the advantage of looking somewhat like Capone but was not
regarded as a big enough star for what was to be a major production. He was
offered the role of Otero but went to a meeting with producer Hal B. Wallis in full
gangster regalia: dark suit and tie, spats, homburg hat, and a big stogie stuffed in
his mouth. He got the part, and this gentle, bookish art collector was typecast as
a tough gangster for most of his career.
Robinson’s major problem with acting wasn’t the snarl or the trend-making
elocution. His problem was that he blinked every time he fired his gun, which
wasn’t what tough guys were supposed to do. Unable to stop the actor from
shutting his eyes, after several takes director Mervyn LeRoy had Robinson’s
eyelids taped open for scenes in which he had to fire a gun.
BEST LINE: Bandello, in a hail of bullets, is shocked to be hit. Clutching
himself, he asks, “Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?”
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THE BIG HEAT
1953
TYPE OF FILM: Detective/Noir

STUDIO: Columbia
PRODUCER: Robert Arthur
DIRECTOR: Fritz Lang
SCREENWRITER: Sydney Kiernan
SOURCE: The Big Heat, novel by William P. McGivern
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Glenn Ford .................................................Sergeant Dave Bannion
Gloria Grahame .....................................................Debby Marsh
Jocelyn Brando .....................................................Katie Bannion
Alexander Scourby ...................................................Mike Lagana
Lee Marvin .........................................................Vince Stone
Jeanette Nolan ....................................................Bertha Duncan
Peter Whitney ..........................................................Tierney
DID YOU KNOW? The Big Heat is the last of the classic noir films, using all
the genre’s conventions and going as far as a first-rate film could go with them. In
showing the corruption of an entire city and the efforts of a single man to restore
order, it was, oddly, the last film under the wire before Senator Joseph McCarthy
convinced Americans (and the film industry) that it was more important to look
for villains outside the borders of America than inside them.
THE STORY: After a police officer commits suicide, his wife removes his
confession note and uses it to blackmail Mike Lagana, the enormously wealthy
and powerful gangster who essentially controls the city. Homicide detective
Sergeant David Bannion is assigned to investigate the suicide and learns that the
dead cop had been taking payoffs from crooks and corrupt officials. As Bannion
digs deeper, he is ordered off the case, but when the dead cop’s girlfriend gives
him evidence, he becomes more determined than ever to uncover the corruption.
When the girl’s tortured body is discovered, Bannion confronts Lagana, who
retaliates by planting a bomb that accidentally kills Bannion’s wife in the tough
173
cop’s car. His superiors remove Bannion from the police force, but he takes his
gun with him and goes on a single-handed mission to bring down the underworld
boss, his organization, and the corrupt officials who allow it to flourish.
Bannion enlists the help of Debby Marsh, the girlfriend of Lagana’s hit man,
Vince Stone, who is scarred when Stone, who suspects (rightly) that Debby is
overly fond of the cop, flings coffee in her face. She determines that killing the
blackmailing widow will release the suicide note and destroy the syndicate, so
she shoots her. She then confronts Stone and flings her own scalding coffee at
him and gets shot. Bannion arrives too late to save her but arrests Stone, resist-
ing the temptation to kill him on the spot. Debby dies in his arms, but the corrup-
tion is uprooted and Bannion returns to the police force.
***
The Big Heat can be compared with the classic American literary and film
archetype, the western, with its lone hero moving into a crime-ridden town and
cleaning it up. Questions of due process and the legality of various actions seem
out of place in such a context, when the forces of evil seem overwhelming and
immutable. To attempt to maintain the use of the system, when the system has
been preempted by the bad guys, seems foolish and hopeless, as western mar-
shals and Dave Bannion understood.
The noir style was perfectly suited to the German-born director Fritz Lang,
who had garnered worldwide praise for his grotesque postexpressionist filming
of Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime and M.
Although Gloria Grahame had been nominated twice for Oscars as Best Sup-
porting Actress (Crossfire, 1947, and The Bad and the Beautiful, 1952), her por-
trayal of the party girl Debby Marsh is generally recognized as her finest perfor-
mance.
BEST LINE: Debby Marsh, as she enters Bannion’s seedy motel room: “Hey,
I like this. Early nothing.”
174
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
1945

PRODUCER: Harry J. Popkin
DIRECTOR: René Clair
SCREENWRITER: Dudley Nichols
SOURCE: Ten Little Niggers, novel by Agatha Christie
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Barry Fitzgerald ................................................Judge Quincannon
Walter Huston .....................................................Dr. Armstrong
Louis Hayward ....................................................Philip Lombard
Roland Young .............................................................Blore
C. Aubrey Smith ................................................General Mandrake
June Duprez ...........................Vera Claythorne
Judith Anderson ...............................................................................Emily Brent
Mischa Auer ..................................................Prince Nikki Starloff
Richard Haydn ...........................................................Rogers
Queenie Leonard .....................................................Mrs. Rogers
Harry Thurston .......................................................Fisherman
DID YOU KNOW? There were almost as many different titles and endings for
And Then There Were None as there were victims. Agatha Christie’s most famous
book was originally titled Ten Little Niggers (1939) in England and And Then
There Were None in the U.S. There were also alternate titles for the 1943 play
version, called Ten Little Niggers in England but the title was changed to Ten
Little Indians for the U.S. stage version. The working title for the film version was
Ten Little Indians, but Christie retained control of that title for dramatic purposes,
and so it was changed to And Then There Were None.
There were also several different endings. In the book, all ten characters are
guilty of the crimes of which they have been accused, and at the end, Vera shoots
Philip, after which she hangs herself and the judge commits suicide.
175
In the play, Vera and Philip are innocent, but Vera, convinced that Philip is
guilty and that he plans to murder her, shoots at him but misses. Philip then kills
the judge, who is trying to hang Vera.
In the original version of the screenplay, Vera and Philip are guilty of murder
but survive, a situation that would not be tolerated by Hollywood censors, who
also would not allow the judge to kill himself in order to evade prosecution. He
was allowed to commit suicide only when it was clear that he did so to incriminate
Vera.
THE STORY: Eight strangers arrive by boat on remote Indian Island, the guests
of Mr. Owen, whom none of them has met. They are greeted by the buffer and
cook, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, who admit that they, too, have not met their employer.
At dinner, the guests notice a centerpiece often little Indians, causing them to
recite the nursery rhyme in which all the little Indian boys die. After dinner,
Rogers, the buffer, plays a phonograph record, as he was instructed to do. A
voice on the record recites the crimes of the guests, all of whom are accused of
having caused the death of others while escaping punishment themselves. When
the guests realize that Mr. U.N. Owen is really “unknown,” they decide to leave
the island but are informed that the next boat won’t arrive for three days.
Soon after, Prince Starloff, having casually admitted to running down and
killing two people while drunk, suddenly keels over—a victim of poison; mean-
while, one of the centerpiece Indians has been broken.
In the morning, Mrs. Rogers fails to awaken because of an overdose of seda-
tives. She and her husband have allegedly been responsible for “helping to end
the suffering” of their former employer. Soon after Mrs. Rogers’ death, the others
find that a second Indian has been broken from the centerpiece.
The eight remaining people determine that the island is deserted and one of
them must be responsible for the deaths. When they arrive back at the house for
dinner, General Mandrake, who has been accused of causing the death of his
wife’s lover, is missing and later found stabbed in the back. As has happened
before and will continue to happen, another Indian is smashed.
That evening, the drunken Rogers locks himself in the woodshed overnight
and is found dead the next morning—killed with an axe. Miss Brent, who had sent
her nephew to reform school, where he hanged himself, becomes the object of
suspicion, but she is found murdered by a hypodermic needle.
176
Later on, after being drawn away from the dinner table, the group returns to
find Judge Quincannon, who had allegedly sent an innocent man to the gallows
to discredit the defense attorney, with a bullet hole in the head.
The next morning, Blore, a detective whose testimony sent an innocent man to
prison, where he was killed, is searching for the missing Dr. Armstrong and spots
something with binoculars. At that moment, a load of bricks falls onto him, crush-
ing him to death. Vera and Lombard find Blore’s crushed body, and later the
doctor, who had admitted to operating while drunk and killing his patient, is
found dead on the beach.
Only Vera—who had confessed to a crime committed by her sister—and the
man called Philip Lombard remain alive. It turns out that Lombard is actually
Charles Morley, who came in place of his friend Lombard, who had committed
suicide when threatened by Mr. Owen. Neither believes the other to be guilty.
Then, Lombard/Morley orders Vera to shoot at him, and he collapses as if hurt.
When Vera returns to the house, Judge Quincannon is waiting for her to admit
that he was the killer, seeking justice that had been denied earlier and explaining
how he faked his death. Quincannon has prepared a hangman’s noose for Vera,
telling her that she will be found guilty and publicly hanged anyway, so she
might as well hang herself privately. He swallows poison and dies, just as Morley
enters the room. The fishing boat arrives and the two survivors happily board
together.
***
While the novel is memorably suspenseful, the motion picture is much lighter,
with many moments of comedy—notably from Rogers the butler—interspersed
to lessen tension. The greatest suspense lies in waiting to see who will be mur-
dered next and in what fashion.
An original plan for casting was to have as many members as possible from the
Broadway stage production recreate their roles for the film. ZaSu Pitts had been
signed, but the delay in making the film removed her from the cast. John Ireland,
too, had been cast at one time.
There were three other film versions of Christie’s novel and play. Curiously, all
four pictures have different settings. After the remote island in the first and best
version, future locales were: a lodge in the Swiss Alps with the guests arriving by
cable car, a hotel in the middle of the desert in Iran with a helicopter delivering the
177
guests, and finally (one hopes, since the quality of each succeeding film has
deteriorated chillingly) an African safari camp. All three remakes were titled Ten
Little Indians. The 1966 version starred Hugh O’Brian and Shirley Eaton, the
1975 remake (described by The New York Times as a “Global Disaster in Iran”)
had an international cast that starred Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer, and the 1989
regurgitation starred (if that is the correct word) Donald Pleasence, Frank Stallone,
and Sarah Maur Thorp.
BEST LINE: Three people have been killed within twenty-four hours, and
Rogers, preparing the evening’s dinner, snidely inquires, “How many will you be
for dinner tonight?”
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DETECTIVE STORY
1951

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: William Wyler
DIRECTOR: William Wyler
SCREENWRITERS: Philip Yordan and Robert Wyler
SOURCE: Detective Story, play by Sidney Kingsley
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Kirk Douglas ................................................Detective Jim McLeod
Eleanor Parker .....................................................Mary McLeod
Horace McMahon .............................................Lieutenant Monaghan
William Bendix ................................................Detective Lou Brady
Cathy O’Donnell .................................................Susan Carmichael
George Macready ................................................Dr. Karl Schneider
Gladys George ........................................................Miss Hatch
Joseph Wiseman ........................................Charles Gennini, the burglar
Lee Grant ............................................................shoplifter
Gerald Mohr .....................................................Tami Giacoppetti
DID YOU KNOW? By 1951, the great detective fiction writer Dashiell Hammett
had just about lost his touch. Years of alcoholism and frail health were exacerbated
by the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated his political
activities. Although he wasn’t broke, his early books providing him with serious
Hollywood money and royalties (his five novels have never been out of print
since their original publications), he was offered work in the movie industry on a
regular basis, partly for his talent and partly out of sympathy for his difficulties.
Producer/director William Wyler offered Hammett $10,000 to do a simple adaptation
of Sidney Kingsley’s play, Detective Story, which he accepted. Wyler flew him to
California from Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, got him a suite of rooms at
the lush Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and dropped by every few days to see how
things were going. He and Hammett had friendly visits, but Hammett was evasive
179
when conversation turned to specifics about the script. Finally, after three weeks,
Hammett handed Wyler a check for the full amount he had been paid. “I just can’t
do it anymore,” he said.
THE STORY: This is the story of a single day in the life of New York’s Twenty-
first Precinct and the policemen who come to work every day, particularly Detective
Jim McLeod. McLeod is rigid and moralistic, becoming more vicious because of
the pressures of the job and the heavy influence of his father, a criminal. “A one-
man army against crime” is how he is described by his boss, Lt. Monaghan. He
treats suspects roughly, especially an abortionist, Dr. Karl Schneider, whom he
brutally beats during an arrest and interrogation.
Schneider’s lawyer reveals that Mary, McLeod’s wife, had had a brief affair
during the war, got pregnant, and went to Schneider, claiming a miscarriage but
obviously for an abortion. McLeod’s inflexible moral code turns him against her,
calling her a tramp and effectively dooming their marriage. Although they both
work at keeping it together, it is clear to her that he has made the same intolerant
judgment of her that he does of the criminals who have become his whole life.
McLeod, more and more despondent and aware that he is incapable of change,
deliberately steps into the line of fire when a criminal tries to escape from the
precinct house, and he is killed.
***
Detective Story was a hugely successful Broadway play that opened in March
of 1949 and ran for nearly two years. Among its all-star cast were Ralph Bellamy
(as McLeod), Lee Grant, Joseph Wiseman, Horace McMahon, Alexander Scourby,
Maureen Stapleton, and Robert Strauss, some of whom went on to reprise their
roles for the screen.
The motion picture, too, was both successful and influential. For the first time,
the members of a police department were portrayed as fully fleshed-out charac-
ters, with lives outside of the precinct: families, fears, weaknesses, problems, and
a range of personalities. Later cop pictures would reflect this new, penetrating
look at the way the job affected, even tortured, members of the police force, and
the influence extended to other media, like the Eighty-seventh Precinct novels of
Ed McBain and such television programs as Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue.
Academy Award nominations went to William Wyler for Best Director, Eleanor
Parker for Best Actress, Lee Grant for Best Supporting Actress, and Philip Yordan
180
and Robert Wyler for Best Screenplay. Grant recreated her role from the stage
production in this, her first film, after which she was blacklisted.
BEST LINE: Jim McLeod, becoming more despondent as the job wears him
down: “If I went home to an empty flat, I wouldn’t dare take my gun with me.”
181
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
1997
TYPE OF FILM: Police/Crime

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David L. Wolper and Dan Kolsrud
PRODUCERS: Arnon Milchan, Curtis Hanson, and
Michael Nathanson
DIRECTOR: Curtis Hanson
SCREENWRITERS: Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson
SOURCE: L.A. Confidential, novel by James Ellroy
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Kevin Spacey .......................................................Jack Vincennes
Russell Crowe ...........................................................Bud White
Guy Pearce ..............................................................Ed Exley
James Cromwell ......................................................Dudley Smith
David Strathairn .....................................................Pierce Patchett
Kim Basinger ........................................................Lynn Bracken
Danny De Vito ........................................................Sid Hudgens
Ron Rifkin .....................................................................................D.A. Ellis Loew
Brett Chase ...........................................................Matt McCoy
Paul Guilfoyle .......................................................Mickey Cohen
Paolo Seganyi ...................................................Johnny Stompanato
Amber Smith ........................................................Susan Lefferts
DID YOU KNOW? James Ellroy, the author of the novel L.A. Confidential, on
which the motion picture was based, believed his book was unfilmable. So did
almost everyone who had ever read it. The cast of characters was too large, the
complexity of their various relationships seemed impossible to simplify, the plot
was so complex and had so many interconnected subplots that there seemed no
way to eliminate any of it without unraveling the whole. There were nearly a
hundred characters and eight fully realized plots, all intertwined. Ellroy wrote that
his novel was uncompressable, uncontainable, and unequivocally bereft of
182
sympathetic characters. It was unsavory, unapologetically dark, untamable,
and altogether untranslatable to the screen. No one disagreed with him until
Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland wrote an adaptation that impressed first
Ellroy, then Warner Brothers, and ultimately members of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, who voted them an Oscar for their screenplay.
THE STORY: Bud White, a white knight for women who need to be protected,
stops to help a woman who is being beaten on Christmas Eve. After the rescue,
he goes to a liquor store to pick up a case of booze for the precinct Christmas
party and meets Lynn Bracken, a Veronica Lake look-alike. At the station house,
some Mexicans have been arrested for beating up some cops and the entire
squad brawls with them. Ed Exley, the ambitious by-the-book son of a former
police hero, recently has been put in charge as watch commander and testifies
that White and his partner were the major culprits in the brawl, but Dudley Smith,
captain of the precinct, saves White’s job while throwing his partner to the
wolves.
Exley, now promoted to lieutenant, answers a homicide call and goes to the
Nite Owl Coffee Shop, where he finds a bloody massacre. Two of the victims are
White’s former partner and a Rita Hayworth look-alike named Sue Lefferts. Three
young Negroes driving a maroon Mercury are suspects. While White is inter-
viewing Pierce Patchett, a high-class pimp, and Bracken, who works for Patchett
(as did Lefferts), Exley and Jack Vincennes, a cop working as advisor to the TV
show Badge of Honor, capture the youths, who appear to be innocent of the
crime (though guilty of many others). They briefly escape, only to be caught and
shot to death by several cops, including the shotgun-toting Exley.
White, unconvinced that the Nite Owl killings have been solved correctly,
keeps digging and becomes obsessed with Bracken, who has fallen in love with
him.
The body count mounts as the corrupt Smith attempts to kill everyone who
knows that he has been trying to take over the organized crime syndicate left by
gangster Mickey Cohen when Cohen was jailed. Patchett is killed, and so is
Vincennes and Sid Hudgens, the sleazy columnist and informant for Hush-Hush
magazine, who knew of Smith’s plan. In a final shootout, Smith and his cronies are
killed by White and Exley—the last two men standing.
183
***
The motion-picture version of L.A. Confidential, as is usual with adaptations,
differs in many elements from the novel, but certainly the spirit of the book was
upheld. Ellroy mixed a great many actual historical figures into his fictional tour
de force, such as Mickey Cohen, Lana Turner, and Johnny Stompanato, as well
as such actual events as the famous “Bloody Christmas” massacre, the corrup-
tion surrounding the building of the freeway system, and even the plans for a
disguised Disneyland many miles away. Some of this got into the movie and
some didn’t.
As totally American as the film is, note James Cromwell’s Irish accent, and
though you probably won’t catch their native accents, both Russell Crowe (Bud
White) and Guy Pearce (Ed Exley) are Australian.
As extraordinary as the picture is, there are a few minor slipups that can be
observed if you pay very close attention.
In the scene in which Susan Lefferts’s corpse lies naked on a gurney, she has
goose bumps. Dead people don’t feel the cold.
When Bud White leaves Lynn Bracken’s house, his car leaves dust clouds
although it is the middle of a rainstorm. The rainstorm continues while he has a
fight with Ed Exley, but when they go to District Attorney Ellis Loew and hang
him out the window, it is a perfectly clear day and there is no evidence of rain
having fallen.
And when a kidnapped girl is rescued, she is taken from the house amid a
gathering of police. A blue mailbox can be seen on the corner. In the 1950s, U.S.
Post Office mailboxes were olivedrab.
Kim Basinger won an Academy Award for Best Actress, as did Brian Helgeland
and Curtis Hanson for Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominations went to L.A. Con-
fidential for Best Picture, Curtis Hanson for Best Director, and for several other
categories in the year in which Titanic swept almost everything in sight.
BEST LINE: Ed Exley, who throughout most of the picture has been an irritant
to everybody except the top brass, has gotten in the way of Bud White, saying
the wrong thing at the wrong time, and White attacks him. Dudley Smith tells
Exley, “Best to stay away from a man when his blood is up.” “His blood is always
up,” Exley responds. Smith answers, “Perhaps you should stay away from him
altogether.”
184
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
1973

STUDIO: Universal
PRODUCER: John Woolf
DIRECTOR: Fred Zinnemann
SCREENWRITER: Kenneth Ross
SOURCE: The Day of the Jackal, novel by Frederick
Forsyth
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Edward Fox ................................The Jackal/Paul Oliver Duggan/Per Lundquist
Alan Badel ...........................................................The Minister
Tony Britton ......................................................Inspector Thomas
Denis Carey ...............................................................Casson
Cyril Cusack ........................................................The Gunsmith
Terence Alexander ...........................................................Lloyd
Michael Auclair ....................................................Colonel Rolland
Adrien Cayla-Legrand ..................................................The President
Maurice Denham ....................................................General Colbert
Vernon Dobtcheff ...................................................The Interrogator
Jacques Francois ............................................................Pascal
Olga Georges-Picot ..........................................................Denise
Derek Jacobi ..........................................................................Caron
Michel Lonsdale .............................................................Lebel
Eric Porter ..........................................................Colonel Rodin
DID YOU KNOW? To this day, there is speculation about how much of The
Day of the Jackal is true and how much is fiction. There is an OAS (Organisation
de l’Armée Secrète), and most of the characters in the book (and the film) were
real, although most of the names were changed and even their physical
descriptions altered to protect against libel suits. Forsyth has refused to confirm
or deny that this plot to assassinate de Gaulle ever actually took place or that
185
there was a leak in the top ranks of the Secret Service, though it is true that there
were several attempts on de Gaulle’s life in 1963, the year in which this thriller is
set. Forsyth has admitted that the Jackal was real and that he met him, though he
lacked the suave sophistication and intelligence of the fictional character.
THE STORY: Many Frenchmen, especially former soldiers, are outraged with
Charles de Gaulle for having given independence to Algeria and they vow to kill
him, forming an organization called the OAS. After several assassination attempts
fail, the group decides that it needs a professional to carry out the job and hires
an Englishman with the code name Jackal.
After the Jackal receives $250,000, the first half of his fee, he begins to make
meticulous preparations for his assassination attempt, acquiring expertly forged
papers and buying a rifle made to his own design.
While he is attending to the details of his job, a member of the OAS is captured
and provides information to the authorities, and a secret but massive manhunt is
begun. Led by the man described as the best detective in France, top members of
the Surete and Scotland Yard go to work and learn the Jackal’s identity, his
description, and even the kind of car he drives. However, because a female mem-
ber of the OAS has insinuated herself into the life of one of the ministers and
pries information out of him, the Jackal is kept apprised of each step of the
investigation.
The Jackal takes up with a beautiful and wealthy woman but kills her when she
tells him the police have asked about him. He changes his disguise and his
documents, assuming now the identity of a Danish schoolteacher.
As de Gaulle prepares to make a speech on August 25, Liberation Day, the
Jackal makes his way into a house from which he will have a clear shot. Only the
last-minute intervention by the detective, who shoots the Jackal, saves de Gaulle.
***
Frederick Forsyth claims to have written the entire novel in thirty-five days. It
was rejected by several publishers before Hutchinson bought it, spurred on by
the fact that the manuscript had been read and approved by Andre Malraux, de
Gaulle’s Minister of Culture.
It is difficult to imagine that a book or film in which the end is known could be
a successful suspense story, but that is exactly what Frederick Forsyth, the au-
thor of the novel on which the film is based, and Fred Zinnemann, the director
186
who translated the novel onto the screen, achieved. Everyone who remembers
French history knows that General Charles de Gaulle did not die as a result of an
assassin’s bullet, yet the maintenance of suspense throughout the cat-and-mouse
game played by the security forces on one hand and the cold-blooded contract
killer on the other is remarkable.
In 1997, The Jackal was released. It was “officially” based on The Day of the
Jackal but bore only the slightest superficial resemblance to the original. It
starred Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier, and Diane Venora. While no
match for the original, it was stylishly and expensively filmed and is worth seeing.
BEST LINE: The three heads of the OAS are contracting the Jackal to
assassinate Charles de Gaulle. He says his fee will be a half-million dollars. “Are
you mad?” one of them asks. “Considering you expect to get France in return,”
he replies, “I’d have thought it a reasonable price.”
187
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
1944
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Espionage

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Jack L. Warner
PRODUCER: Howard Hawks
SCREENWRITERS: Jules Furthman and William
Faulkner
SOURCE: To Have and Have Not, novel by Ernest
Hemingway
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Humphrey Bogart .....................................................Harry Morgan
Walter Brennan .............................................................Eddie
Lauren Bacall .................................................Marie “Slim” Browning
Hoagy Carmichael ..........................................................Cricket
Dan Seymour .......................................................Captain Renard
Marcel Dalio ..............................................................Gerard
Dolores Moran ....................................................Helene de Brusac
Sheldon Leonard ....................................................Lieutenant Coyo
Walter Molnar .......................................................Paul de Brusac
Walter Sande .............................................................Johnson
Aldo Nadi .......................................................Renard’s bodyguard
Paul Marion .............................................................Beauclerc
Patricia Shay ........................................................Mrs. Beauclerc
DID YOU KNOW? Lauren Bacall made her screen debut in this film version of
Ernest Hemingway’s novel. She had been working as a successful model and was
spotted on the cover of Vogue magazine by director Howard Hawks’s wife, Nancy
Raye Gross, a model whose nickname was “Slim.” Bacall, whose real name was
Betty Bacal (first changed to Lauren and with an “L” added to the last by Hawks,
who signed her to a personal services contract), was nicknamed “Slim” in To
188
Have and Have Not. Within three weeks of meeting, she and Humphrey Bogart
fell in love, somewhat complicated by the fact that he was married at the time.
Bacall was only nineteen when they met and uncomfortable with the notion of
getting involved with a married man, so Bogart got a divorce and they were
married within the year. They went on to star together in The Big Sleep (1946),
Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948).
THE STORY: Harry Morgan is a professional fisherman who rents out his boat
on Martinique, a French island in the Caribbean, in the days following the fall of
France. He returns to his hotel after a disastrous trip with an American client who
tries to cheat him out of his fee. Later, when he tries to collect, a stray shot in a
Vichy raid on the hotel kills the client, all of whose funds are impounded.
Morgan, broke and hoping to help Marie—the singer at the hotel with whom
he has begun a flirtation—buy a plane ticket back to America, agrees to use his
boat for a risky mission. He will smuggle a leader of the French underground and
his wife, Paul and Helene de Brusac, onto an island.
With Eddie, an old rummy he takes care of, aboard, Morgan picks up the
French couple and encounters a Vichy patrol boat; Brusac gets wounded. When
he brings his passengers to the hotel, Morgan finds that Marie has not used her
ticket but remained at the hotel, waiting for Morgan to return. Guessing that the
Vichy police will suspect him of the run that brought the resistance leader to the
island, Morgan and Marie get ready to flee, when he learns that Eddie has been
arrested. The police are confident that withholding liquor from him will force him
to talk. Morgan suddenly turns violent when the police inform him of their plan,
and he shoots one, beating two others until they call for Eddie’s release. Handing
the surviving policemen over to the de Gaullists, Harry and Marie board his ship
to leave the island.
***
Although the story of To Have and Have Not was not an especially original
one (more than one viewer has noticed its structural similarity to Casablanca), it
became an enormous box-office hit, largely because of the extraordinary cha-
risma of the two stars and the heat they generated whenever they were together
on screen (to say nothing of the heat they generated when they were off screen).
In one of the more interesting little rumors that has entered cinematic mythol-
ogy, it has been widely reported that the singing voice of Marie was not Lauren
189
Bacall’s but that it was dubbed by Andy Williams, the popular singer of the 1960s
and ’70s. The fourteen-year-old singer had indeed been used several times to
dub actress’s voices and was hired to do the same for this film. In her autobiog-
raphy, Bacall maintained that she did her own singing. Williams had always main-
tained that his voice was used. In fact, Williams originally sang “How Little We
Know,” and Hawks heard Bacall singing along. He was so impressed with Bacall’s
singing that he reshot the scene, using her own singing voice throughout. She
also sang her own song in The Big Sleep the following year.
To Have and Have Not was remade in 1950 as The Breaking Point, a first-rate
film starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal. It was remade again in 1958 and
shouldn’t have been.
The memorable, if understated, sexiness of Bacall was in part the result of her
posture and carriage. Her head was always down, so when she looked at Bogart,
even if she was standing and he was seated, her eyes were looking upward at him
in a coy manner. This was not her natural bearing. As a very young woman taking
on a starring role in her first film, she was so nervous that she couldn’t stop her
head from shaking. In time, she learned that the only way she could stop it was to
put her chin on her chest, which obviously kept her head down and eyes up.
BEST LINE: (Could it be anything else?) Marie “Slim” Browning is making an
overtly flirtatious overture to Harry Morgan. “You know you don’t have to act
with me, Steve,” she tells him. “You don’t have to say anything and you don’t
have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe a whistle. You know how to whistle,
don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”
190
BLADE RUNNER
1982

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Brian Kelly, Hampton
Francher
PRODUCER: Michael Delley, Ridley Scott
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
SCREENWRITERS: Hampton Francher and
David Peoples
SOURCE: Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?, novel by Philip K.
Dick
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Harrison Ford ........................................................Rick Deckard
Rutger Hauer ............................................................Roy Batty
Sean Young ...............................................................Rachael
Edward James Olmos ..........................................................Gaff
M. Emmet Walsh ..................................................Captain Bryant
Daryl Hannah ...............................................................Pris
William Sanderson ....................................................J. F. Sebastian
Brion James ................................................................Leon
Joe Turkel .........................................................Dr. Eldon Tyrell
Joanna Cassidy .............................................................Zhora
DID YOU KNOW? Although now regarded as a modern classic, both as a
work of science fiction and as an old-fashioned noir private-eye film, complete
with voice-over narration, Blade Runner was not an immediate success, costing
$27,000,000 to make and earning only $14,000,000 on its initial release.
Critics, too, were tough on it, so much so that it was reedited more than once.
In the original released version, Deckard and Rachael are reunited in his apart-
ment, where he wonders how much time they will have together. The downbeat
191
ending was changed for the second version, in which they head away from the
filth of Los Angeles and drive into the country, where it seems they will have a
better chance for happiness and a longer one, adding the notion that she did not
have the usual four-year life span of other Replicants.
There was no voice-over in the first version. It was added to clarify some of the
action in the rereleased second version, and it was eliminated from the director’s
cut (made in 1991 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the film).
Finally, the director’s cut placed greater emphasis on the romance between
Deckard and Rachael and makes it more likely that Deckard, too, is a Replicant,
which would be virtually impossible to comprehend from either of the first two
versions, even with repeated viewing.
THE STORY: The Los Angeles of 2019 is a city of unrelenting rain and smog,
with giant skyscrapers built on the ruins of what had once been there, populated
by those who couldn’t afford to move off-planet to a better, brighter place.
Rick Deckard, a former cop, former Blade Runner (a member of a police depart-
ment unit with a license to kill), and former killer, is pressed into service against
his will when some Replicants (highly intelligent robots that look exactly like
humans), outlawed from Earth ever since a colony staged an uprising against its
human slavemasters, have sneaked back to the planet. It is his assignment to find
them and kill them.
The Replicants have come back to Earth to find their creator, Dr. Eldon Tyrell, in
order to have him change the self-destruct mechanism that is activated after a
four-year life. Deckard visits Tyrell and falls in love with Rachael, his “daughter,”
a special Replicant so advanced that no one has guessed that she is not hu-
man—not even herself, though she has begun to suspect it.
Deckard kills one of the Replicants, a woman, by shooting her in the back as
she flees, and Leon, another of the superpowerful androids, nearly kills him,
saying “Time to die.” Rachael shoots Leon, saving Deckard’s life.
The two surviving escaped Replicants—Roy Batty, the top-of-the-line leader
with handsome features and exceptional physical abilities, and Pris, created as a
prostitute—have managed to locate Dr. Tyrell. Batty kills him, crushing his skull,
when he learns that termination dates cannot be altered and that he and Pris have
only a very short time to live.
Deckard catches up with the rebels at the once-beautiful Bradbury Building
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and, after a fight with the powerful Pris, shoots her. When Batty finds her, he
tenderly kisses her dead mouth while Deckard attempts to ambush him, but with
extraordinarily fast reflexes, Batty eludes the gunfire.
They engage in a long and violent cat-and-mouse game until Deckard is trapped,
hanging from a ledge near the roof. Desperately holding on but ultimately unable
to save himself, his grip loosens and he begins to plunge to his death, when
Batty grabs him and saves his life.
Deckard, puzzled at first, surmises that, at the very end, Batty saved his life just
before he himself ran out of time and died, because “maybe in those last moments
he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody’s life, my
life.”
Deckard returns to his apartment to find Rachael asleep. As a Replicant and
therefore illegal on Earth, she is supposed to be killed, but he leaves Los Angeles
with her. As a special Replicant, the pet project of Dr. Tyrell, it is possible that she
was not made with a termination date. “I didn’t know how long we had together,”
Deckard muses. “Who does?”
***
When Deckard is hired, he is told that six Replicants, three male and three
female, escaped and made it to Earth. One male was “fried” at the “electronic
gate” at the Tyrell Corporation building; we never see this one. Zhora, the snake
dancer, is killed by Deckard (that’s two). Leon is shot and killed by Rachael
(number three). Pris and Batty (four and five) die in the final confrontation with
Deckard. The sixth rebel is never seen or mentioned again. However, Rachael is
also a Replicant, though she was not one of the criminal Replicants being hunted
and, indeed, was not known to be a Replicant by the police or Deckard until he
did some tests at the behest of Dr. Tyrell, who tried to fool Deckard into thinking
she was human.
The inability to count was not only the goof in the making of Blade Runner.
The sheet music that Rachael apparently reads while playing the piano is for a
different piece of music. Batty’s shoes are blue when he climbs through the
window in the final scene, yet they are black when he is on the roof. Earlier in the
same scene, Batty clenches his hand and a nail can be seen to have been driven
through it—an event that does not occur until later.
The original choice to play Rick Deckard was (yes, this is true) Dustin Hoffman.
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BEST LINE: Rick Deckard has just ordered lunch—some raw fish over
noodles—at an outdoor bar, and reminisces to himself, “Sushi, that’s what my ex-
wife called me. Cold fish.”
194
GOODFELLAS
1990
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

PRODUCER: Irwin Winkler
SCREENWRITERS: Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese
SOURCE: Wiseguy, biography by Nicholas P
ileggi
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert De Niro ......................................................James Conway
Ray Liotta .............................................................Henry Hill
Joe Pesci ...........................................................Tommy DeVito
Lorraine Bracco .........................................................Karen Hill
Paul Sorvino ...........................................................Paul Cicero
Frank Sivero ..............................................................Frankie
Tony Darrow ...............................................................Sonny
DID YOU KNOW? Crime did pay for Henry Hill, the real-life character at the
center of GoodFellas, and so did ratting on his friends. When it became evident
that he was about to be either killed by his gangster cronies or arrested for his
activities by the police, Hill turned state’s evidence and testified against his
gangland associates in court. He was put into the Federal Witness Protection
Program, where he remained safe from those he fingered. After the U.S. Supreme
Court overturned New York State’s “Son of Sam” law prohibiting criminals from
profiting from their crimes, Hill also received $200,000 for the book and motion
picture made from his experiences. He has also received substantial sums for
appearing on talk shows (in disguise, of course) and as a consultant for television
gangster shows.
THE STORY: Henry Hill, impressed with the cars and clothes of the
neighborhood gangsters, decides to join the life by doing odd jobs for mob boss
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Paul Cicero and teaming up with two other thugs, Jimmy Conway and Tommy
DeVito.
When Conway and DeVito kill a “made” member of the mob, Henry helps them
bury the body. The three friends become wealthy and gain power in the mob, but
their greed and stupidity, as well as the psychotic violence of DeVito, combine to
undo them.
Henry, against the strict orders of his patron, Cicero, begins to traffic in drugs.
DeVito is discovered to have murdered the “made” mobster, an uncondonable
breach of mob rules, and is himself killed. Conway, helping to engineer a huge
airport robbery, decides to eliminate partners so that he’ll have more money for
himself.
Henry, meanwhile, spots the narcs closing in on him and decides his only way
out is to go into the Federal Witness Protection Program, testifying against his
friends and former associates in court and sending them away for long prison
terms while he mourns the life he has had to give up.
***
GoodFellas was successful both in commercial and critical terms, with review-
ers often comparing it with Mean Streets, another Scorsese crime film which it
closely resembles. It gives a close and accurate look at gangster life as the prin-
cipals shared a single vision: to get married and raise a family, have a mistress on
the side, spend a lot of time with male friends hanging out in bars, and do what-
ever is necessary to get money.
In addition to Henry Hill, the other characters are all based on genuine people.
Jimmy Conway was based on James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, whose nickname
came from a film tough guy played by James Cagney in the movie of that title.
Events depicted in GoodFellas also actually transpired, most famously the
airport robbery that was based on the heist of a Lufthansa plane at Kennedy
Airport in 1978.
The motion picture undoubtedly would have been named Wiseguy, as was the
book, since it is a better-known bit of gangster terminology for a hoodlum, but a
popular television series with that title was airing at that time.
Joe Pesci won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as
Tommy DeVito. Nominations also went to the film for Best Picture and to Martin
Scorsese for Best Director.
196
BEST LINE: Henry Hill, having turned state’s evidence, is not exactly contrite.
“See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life,” he admits while on the stand.
“I still love the life. We were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all just
for the asking . . . Today everything is different. There’s no action. I have to wait
around like everyone else . . . I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my
life like a schnook.”
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THE UNTOUCHABLES
1987
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Art Linson
DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma
SCREENWRITER: David Mamet
SOURCE: The Untouchables television series,
which was based on The Untouchables,
a true crime book by Oscar Fraley
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Kevin Costner ...........................................................Eliot Ness
Sean Connery .......................................................James Malone
Charles Martin Smith ..................................................Oscar Wallace
Andy Garcia ..........................................................George Stone
Robert De Niro ..........................................................Al Capone
Richard Bradford .............................................................Mike
Jack Kehoe ...........................................................Walter Payne
Brad Sullivan ..............................................................George
Billy Drago ............................................................Frank Nitti
Patricia Clarkson .....................................................Catherine Ness
DID YOU KNOW? Purportedly based on real-life events, The Untouchables is
three steps removed from reality. First, Oscar Fraley wrote a book called The
Untouchables. It was written in collaboration with Eliot Ness, who made every
effort to glamorize and glorify the role played by himself and his team in bringing
the gangsters of Chicago to their knees. This was picked up and adapted for a
television series, starring Robert Stack, which enjoyed great popularity from 1959
to 1963. In order to sustain a weekly series for five years, new exploits, new
villains, and new acts of derring-do had to be invented. By the time the film was
written (by David Mamet, who no one has ever accused of being a journalist), it
became virtually impossible to know how many, if any, of the depicted adventures
had ever actually taken place.
198
THE STORY: Chicago in 1930 is owned by Al Capone, who controls the mob
and the liquor business and has stayed in power by having the police, judges,
and powerful city officials on his payroll. A special U.S. Treasury agent, Eliot
Ness, is assigned to bring down Capone and his gangsters. On his first big raid,
cases of what were expected to be illicit liquor turn out to contain nothing of
value, as the gangsters obviously had been warned by corrupt cops.
Ness builds his own small unit of men he can trust, beginning with Jim Malone,
an elderly cop who continues to walk a beat because he won’t be corrupted.
They go together to the police academy and recruit its best sharpshooter, an
Italian from the South Side who has renamed himself George Stone. When Oscar
Wallace, an apparently meek bookkeeper, appears, confident that he can nail
Capone for income-tax evasion, he, too, is added to the group, which the newspa-
pers begin to call The Untouchables.
The special agents raid a large warehouse full of booze, infuriating Capone,
who says he wants Ness and his entire family killed. On the next big job, they join
with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to capture ten trucks full of liquor
coming across the border and the money that was to pay for it. More importantly,
they seize a set of coded ledgers that list those on Capone’s payroll and show
large earnings for the gangster. After a shootout in which virtually all of the
gangsters are killed, the agents try to get one of Capone’s bookkeepers to de-
code the ledger, without success, until Malone, the wise old Irish cop, goes
outside the cabin in which they have been meeting. He lifts one of the already
slain gangsters against the window and yells at him to talk, putting a gun in his
mouth and threatening to shoot if he won’t. At the count of three, he pulls the
trigger, inducing the terrified bookkeeper to offer to tell everything he knows.
The Mountie, unaware that the gangster was already dead, tells Ness that he
doesn’t approve of his methods. “Well,” Ness responds, “you’re not from Chi-
cago.”
In a bold move at the police station, Capone’s henchman, Frank Nitti, kills the
captured bookkeeper and Oscar, causing Ness to confront Capone. They ex-
change threats. Nitti then goes after Malone at his apartment and kills him in a
hail of machine-gun fire, but not before the dying cop lets Ness know where
Capone’s personal bookkeeper is to be rushed out of town by train. Ness and
Stone capture him and bring him to court, where he has agreed to testify. Capone
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is unconcerned and Ness deduces that the jury has been bribed, so he coerces
the judge to switch juries. Nitti, in the courtroom with a gun, is chased to the roof
by Ness, where Nitti taunts the FBI agent by telling him that Malone squealed
like a stuck pig when he died. Ness throws him from the roof, and as Nitti screams
on his plunge, Ness yells after him, “Did he sound anything like that?” Capone is
sentenced to eleven years. Outside the courtroom, a reporter informs Ness that
Prohibition may be repealed and asks what he’ll do then. He says, “I think I’ll
have a drink.”
***
Kevin Costner, as stone-faced as Harrison Ford, is perfectly cast as the straight-
arrow, grown-up Boy Scout who wants to do good, and Robert De Niro is com-
pelling as a flamboyant Al Capone, but it is Sean Connery who steals the movie.
No one can quibble with the fact that he’s an old Irish cop who happens to have
a Scottish accent, but one wonders how a cop consigned to a beat for so many
years can know so much about Al Capone’s business, where his secret ware-
houses of liquor are, why he is so intimate with the top brass in the department,
and other stretches of imagination. However, his performance as a straightfor-
ward man of courage and action was good enough to earn him a deserved Acad-
emy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
If the film has a negative, it is the excessive amount of blood that Brian De
Palma felt necessary. A single gunshot to the forehead had an entire side of an
elevator covered (not splattered—covered) with blood, all the way to the ceiling.
The violence with which Capone smashes the skull of one of his henchmen with
a baseball bat (obviously lifted directly from Party Girl, a 1958 gangster movie
made by Nicholas Ray) is so bloody that the other gangsters turn away in dis-
gust!
BEST LINE: Jim Malone is in his apartment when one of Capone’s thugs
breaks in and sneaks up on him with a knife in his hand. Malone turns around
with a large gun and smiles. “Isn’t that just like a wop,” he says. “Brings a knife
to a gunfight.”
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REAR WINDOW
1954

STUDIO: Paramount
SCREENWRITER: John Michael Hayes
SOURCE: “It Had to Be Murder,” short story by
William Irish, pseudonym of Cornell
Woolrich
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Stewart ....................................................L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries
Grace Kelly ......................................................Lisa Carol Fremont
Wendell Corey .....................................................Thomas J. Doyle
Thelma Ritter ..............................................................Stella
Raymond Burr .......................................................Lars Thorwald
Judith Evelyn .....................................................Miss Lonelyhearts
Irene Winston .......................................................Mrs. Thorwald
Ross Bagdasarian ........................................................Composer
Georgine Darcy .........................................................Miss Torso
Jesslyn Fax .........................................................Miss Sculptress
DID YOU KNOW? Although the set of Rear Window seems so close as to be
almost claustrophobic, the one-room set is perhaps the largest ever built on the
Paramount lot. The apartment in which the wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart is
restricted was, in fact, his own Greenwich Village apartment, but the apartment
building across the way, into which he spies with binoculars, is a set. It required
the construction of an apartment building with thirty-one separate apartments,
twelve of which were fully furnished. It was Hitchcock’s belief that it would have
been impossible to properly light those apartments if they were genuine locations.
THE STORY: Photographer L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries broke his leg on an assignment
and has been confined to his apartment for six weeks, his only amusement being
201
to look into the apartments (and the lives) of the people who live across the
courtyard.
While watching Miss Torso, the gorgeous dancer with countless suitors, and
Miss Lonelyhearts, a lonely woman who prepares dinner for two but dines alone,
a newlywed couple, a sculptress, and others, he notices the behavior of Lars
Thorwald and becomes convinced that he has murdered his nagging wife.
After Jeff sees Thorwald make several trips out of the apartment with a suit-
case late on a rainy night, he no longer sees the wife, who previously was always
present. Later, he spots Thorwald wrapping a butcher knife and a saw in newspa-
pers and watches as he ties up a large trunk to be hauled away.
Unable to get out of his wheelchair, Jeff enlists the help of his girlfriend, the
beautiful model Lisa Carol Fremont, who wants to marry Jeff. Jeff feels she is too
beautiful, too refined—too perfect—for him and tries to break up with her. She
persists and helps him by slipping a note under Thorwald’s door, asking the
apparent murderer what he has done with his wife. Jeff follows with a telephone
call to lure him out of his apartment, and Lisa climbs a fire-escape ladder and slips
into his window, only to have Thorwald return unexpectedly and catch her. Jeff
calls the police, but Lisa has found the vital clue—the murdered wife’s wedding
ring.
When Thorwald spots her signaling with the ring across the courtyard, he
sees Jeff and comes after him, attempting to push him out the window while
neighbors watch. Just as the police arrive, Jeff falls, breaking his other leg, and
Thorwald confesses.
***
Rear Window is one of Hitchcock’s greatest successes and may define his
work better than any other single film, with the possible exception of North by
Northwest. Here is suspense, but also humor (especially in the dialogue of the
no-nonsense nurse, Stella). Here, too, is the gorgeous ice-blond heroine, played
by the incomparable Grace Kelly. The leading man—laconic and charming, played
by James Stewart, a production crew and writer with whom he often worked and
felt comfortable, along with a MacGuffin (the dead woman’s wedding ring) all
combine to make the quintessential Alfred Hitchcock motion picture.
Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the story on which the film was based, was some-
what bitter about having been paid such a small amount for the story. It was one
202
of eight stories in a collection sold by his Hollywood agent, H. N. Swanson, in the
1940s for $5,000; it was not optioned—meaning that more money would be paid
if a movie was actually produced—but sold outright, so the author would never
be owed any further payments. Woolrich joked (bitterly) that Swanson sold ev-
erything for $5,000, hence was known as “Five Grand Swannie.” His fee, there-
fore, was a little more than $600, but what angered Woolrich even more than the
minuscule payment was that Hitchcock did not invite him to the premiere show-
ing of the movie in New York, where Woolrich lived.
Alfred Hitchcock received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director,
losing to Elia Kazan for On the Waterfront. John Michael Hayes won an Edgar
Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his screenplay.
Grace Kelly had just been offered the female lead in On the Waterfront when
Hitchcock called to tell her that she was expected for wardrobe fittings. Since she
had not seen a script or been offered a contract, she was taken aback, but having
enjoyed working with Hitchcock in Dial M for Murder, she agreed to take the
part. Eva Marie Saint went on to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, while
Kelly won the Best Actress award—not for Rear Window, but for The Country
Girl.
Hitchcock Alert: When you see a man winding a clock, that is Hitchcock.
BEST LINE: Stella, Jeff’s nurse, telling him what an idiot he is for not marrying
Lisa: “When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they oughtta
come together—wham!—like a coupla taxis on Broadway . . . not sit around
analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.”
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CRISS CROSS
1949
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Universal
PRODUCER: Michael Kraike
DIRECTOR: Robert Siodmak
SCREENWRITER: Daniel Ruchs
SOURCE: Criss Cross, novel by Don Tracy
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Burt Lancaster .....................................................Steve Thompson
Yvonne De Carlo ......................................................Anna Dundee
Dan Duryea ..........................................................Slim Dundee
Stephen McNally ....................................................Lt. Pete Ramirez
Tom Redi ................................................................Vincent
Percy Helton ...............................................................Frank
Alan Napier .............................................................Finchley
DID YOU KNOW? Mark Hellinger, the gifted journalist and short story writer,
went to Hollywood to write screenplays and produce movies, quickly becoming
master of the noir film. He produced The Killers and had begun to put together
the talent to make Criss Cross, based very loosely on Don Tracy’s novel of the
same name. Unexpectedly, Hellinger had a heart attack and died at the age of
forty-four, cutting short what was destined to be a great career.
THE STORY: Armored-car guard Steve Thompson, once married to Anna, is
still in love with her, though she’s left him for Slim Dundee, a gangster and owner
of Slim’s, the nightclub where Steve and Anna had so many happy evenings. The
fire apparently reignites for Anna as well, until they are caught together at Dundee’s
beach house. To explain his presence there with Slim’s wife, Steve tells him of an
elaborate robbery plan that he’s been working on and was hoping to learn if
Dundee wanted to be in. As Dundee questions Steve more intensely about the
details of the planned robbery, Steve finds himself locked into a scheme that he
had never wanted in the first place. No one is telling the truth. Steve plans to take
204
all the money and run away with Anna. Slim plans to kill Steve during the robbery.
Anna just wants the money.
Steve’s partner is killed during the robbery, and he is wounded while killing two
of Dundee’s cohorts. Steve wakes up in a hospital, a hero for having killed two
gangsters who tried to rob his armored car, while Anna has absconded with the
money. One of Dundee’s men takes him to Anna’s hiding place, only to have Slim
walk in on them and kill them both.
***
One of the greatest of all noir films, Criss Cross utilized every convention and
brought all the perfect talent together to make it memorable. The sense of hope-
lessness is emphasized by a long flashback with its moody voice-over. Audi-
ences recognize that flashback is useful in this dark universe only because there
is no future. The beautiful woman who betrays the man (who is totally captivated
by her) is another staple of the noir film, and Yvonne De Carlo fits right in with
Veronica Lake, Ava Gardner, and Lizabeth Scott when it comes to turning strong
men into mush. Burt Lancaster, of course, made a career out of going against
type. A big and muscular man (who had been a trapeze artist), tough to the core,
lost all his spine when it came to bad women. He starred in such noir classics and
near-classics as The Killers (1946), Desert Fury (1947), Brute Force (1947), I
Walk Alone (1947), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
(1948), and All My Sons (1948). Lancaster, much like the other tough guys of film
noir who gave up everything for the wrong woman (only Robert Mitchum ranks
with Lancaster in the sucker category), could have as his epitaph the sad and
frustrated line he speaks to De Carlo at the end of Criss Cross: “I never wanted
the money,” he tells her. “I only wanted you.”
Robert Siodmak, the director, made so many memorable films noir in the brief
period from 1944 to 1949 (Phantom Lady, Christmas Holiday, The Suspect, The
Dark Mirror, The Spiral Staircase, The Killers, Cry of the City and The File on
Thelma Jordon, as well as Criss Cross) that, as the genre became less popular, he
found it difficult to find work in other forms and returned to his native Germany,
his career largely over.
Tony Curtis (billed as James Curtis) made his screen debut as Yvonne De
Carlo’s dance partner.
Criss Cross was remade in 1995 as The Underneath, starring Peter
205
Gallagher, Alison Elliott and William Fichtner in a stylish but slow-moving
update.
BEST LINE: Lt. Pete Ramirez, speaking to his doomed friend, Steve Thompson:
“I should have been a better friend. I should have stopped you. I should have
grabbed you by the neck. I should have kicked your teeth in. I’m sorry, Steve.”
206
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
1991
TYPE OF FILM: Detective/Suspense

STUDIO: Orion
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Gary Goetzman
PRODUCERS: Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, Ron
Bozman
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Demme
SCREENWRITER: Ted Tally
SOURCE: The Silence of the Lambs,
novel by Thomas Harris
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Jodie Foster ......................................................Clarice Starling
Anthony Hopkins ..............................................Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Scott Glenn .......................................................Jack Crawford
Ted Levine .........................................................James Gumb
Anthony Heald ...............................................Dr. Frederick Chiltern
Brooke Smith ....................................................Catherine Martin
Diane Baker ..................................................Senator Ruth Martin
Kasi Lemmons ......................................................Ardelia Mapp
Charles Napier ...................................................Lieutenant Boyle
DID YOU KNOW? Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, one of the most chilling
villains in the history of literature and cinema, is loosely based on a real person.
Ed Gein, a multiple murderer and eater of his victims, also served as the prototype
for Norman Bates in Robert Bloch’s Psycho (later filmed by Alfred Hitchcock) as
well as inspiring Deranged, the 1974 motion picture directed by Jeff Gillen and
starring Alan Ormsby, Roberts Blossom, and Cosette Lee. Finally, Gein influenced
the making of the cult favorite, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which is
less violent than its title and reputation suggest and was directed by Tobe Hooper
and starred Gunnar Hansen, Ed Neal and Marilyn Burns.
207
THE STORY: Clarice Starling, still a student at the FBI Academy, is recruited
by the head of the behavioral science unit, Jack Crawford, to seek help from the
imprisoned Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in capturing another serial killer, who
removes the skins from his raped and murdered victims. Nicknamed “Buffalo Bill”
by the press (because he skins his humps), he has murdered at least five young
women, and the pressure to capture him escalates when he kidnaps the daughter
of a senator from Tennessee.
Dr. Lecter, a brilliant psychopath who ate parts of his victims (he describes one
incident to Starling in which he ate a man’s liver, “with fava beans and a nice
Chianti”), agrees to help the young FBI trainee if she will help him get a cell with
a view. Starling comes back with an offer: He will be transferred to another prison
and be given a week each year at a guarded beach in exchange for a profile of the
serial killer.
Lecter and Starling exchange information—she about her childhood, he about
the killer, including an explanation of why a moth’s cocoon was found stuffed
down a victim’s throat. But Dr. Frederick Chiltern, the ambitious head of the
facility housing Lecter, reveals to Lecter that the offer was bogus and makes him
his own offer, for which he received approval from the senator. Lecter provides
the name and physical description of the killer in a face-to-face meeting with the
senator.
Lecter quickly escapes from a new facility: After killing his two guards, he
changes into the uniform of one, smears himself unrecognizable in blood, and is
rushed into an ambulance, after which he kills the doctor and drivers.
Meanwhile, Crawford and a large team of agents has gone off on a wild-goose
chase to the believed residence of “Bill.” Starling, alone, conducts interviews
regarding an earlier victim and goes to the house of her acquaintance, only to
discover that “Bill” now lives there and has imprisoned the senator’s daughter in
the basement. After nearly being killed herself, Starling shoots and kills the de-
ranged killer.
At the graduation celebration at the FBI Academy, Starling receives a tele-
phone call from the still-free Lecter, who wishes her well. As he spots Dr. Chiltern,
Lecter says he’d like to chat longer, he says, but he’s “having an old friend for
dinner.”
***
The Silence of the Lambs was an enormous best-seller by Thomas Harris and
208
is one of the best serial-killer books ever written. It was a sequel to the even more
suspenseful Red Dragon, which introduced “Hannibal the Cannibal” in a small
role and which was filmed as Manhunter in 1986, written and directed by Michael
Mann. It starred William L. Petersen as a somewhat imbalanced retired FBI agent
who was called back to help track the ruthless genius; Brian Cox wonderfully
played Lecter.
Just as Psycho brought on a wave of imitations by lesser talents who created
the slasher movie with graphic depictions of violence, The Silence of the Lambs
spawned an overwhelming flood of serial-killer books and movies, some of which
have been excellent but many of which attempted to be more violent or outland-
ishly grisly than anything that had preceded them.
Academy Awards were given for Best Picture, to Demme for Best Director, to
Foster for Best Actress, to Hopkins for Best Actor, and to Tally for Best Adapted
Screenplay. The Mystery Writers of America gave an Edgar Allan Poe Award to
Tally for his screenplay.
BEST LINE: Clarice Starling has come to visit Hannibal Lecter in his new
prison, and a guard asks her, “Is it true what they’re saying? He’s some kind of
vampire?” Starling replies, “They don’t have a name for what he is.”
209
MURDER, MY SWEET
1944

STUDIO: RKO
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sid Rogell
PRODUCER: Adrian Scott
DIRECTOR: Edward Dmytryk
SCREENWRITER: John Paxton
SOURCE: Farewell, My Lovely, novel by
Raymond Chandler
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Dick Powell .......................................................Philip Marlowe
Claire Trevor ........................................................Mrs. Grayle
Anne Shirley .......................................................Ann Riordan
Otto Kruger ........................................................Jules Amthor
Mike Mazurki ......................................................Moose Malloy
Miles Mander .........................................................Mr. Grayle
Douglas Walton .........................................................Marriott
Don Douglas ...................................................Lieutenant Randall
DID YOU KNOW? Moose Malloy, played by Mike Mazurki, had one
overwhelming characteristic (apart from his devotion to his girlfriend, Velma): his
huge size. Although Mazurki was six foot four, he failed to convey that gigantic
presence, because Dick Powell was six two. To assure that Mazurki would tower
over everyone else, Powell had to walk in a trench when paired with him in a
scene, and he took off his shoes to stand barefoot while Mazurki stood on a box.
Director Edward Dmytryk even created a ceiling slanted at an angle to the camera
so that, as Mazurki moved closer to other cast members, he would appear to grow
enormously as he approached.
THE STORY: Moose Malloy hires Marlowe to find Velma, the girlfriend he
hasn’t seen in eight years because of a jail sentence. When asked to describe her,
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he helpfully says, “She was as cute as lace pants.” Meanwhile, Marlowe is also
hired to retrieve a stolen necklace, and when the detective and his client show
up to make the transaction, Marlowe is knocked out and the client murdered.
Ann Riordan discovers the body and tells Marlowe that the necklace was once
owned by Mrs. Grayle, who claims that a psychic, Jules Amthor, uses his racket
to blackmail people. Marlowe visits Amthor with Moose, who joins forces with
the psychic to beat up and imprison the detective. Marlowe escapes to learn
that Moose has killed Amthor, and is on a gambling ship run by gangsters. Mrs.
Grayle—who was actually Velma—is killed, as is her husband and Moose.
***
Murder, My Sweet was one of the first noir detective films, in which decent,
honorable people are few and far between. Marlowe is a cynical detective who
nonetheless has an optimistic view of the world and believes it is his role to be
a white knight, protecting and helping those unable to defend themselves. He
is a loner, relentless in his pursuit of justice, and uninterested in playing by the
rules.
Casting Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe was risky, because he had a well-
established career as a young singer and dancer and the change to a grizzled
tough guy stretched his acting ability to the limit. Yet he was so successful that
those became the roles he had for the rest of his career.
The film was initially released as Farewell, My Lovely, the title of Chandler’s
novel, but audiences were small. It turned out that the few who came to the
cinema were expecting to see another Powell musical. The film was immediately
withdrawn and retitled, becoming a box-office smash.
The director, Edward Dmytryk, had made only B movies until given the op-
portunity to shoot this film on a very healthy budget of $400,000; with his B
background, he had no trouble bringing the film in on time and within the
budget.
This is actually the second screen version of the story. The first was The
Falcon Takes Over (1942), made as part of the series about “The Falcon” and
starred George Sanders. RKO had paid Chandler only $2,000 for the screen
rights, and when it made the big-budget Powell version, it already owned the
rights and paid Chandler nothing.
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It was made yet again in 1975 as Farewell, My Lovely, starring Robert Mitchum;
no one in the audience expected a musical this time.
BEST LINE: Marlowe (Powell) to a flirtatious Mrs. Grayle (Trevor): “Tell your
husband I went home; tell him I got bored.”
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THE POSTMAN ALWAYS
RINGS TWICE
1946
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCER: Carey Wilson
DIRECTOR: Tay Garnett
SCREENWRITERS: Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch
SOURCE: The Postman Always Rings Twice, novel by James
M. Cain
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Lana Turner .........................................................Cora Smith
John Garfield ....................................................Frank Chambers
Cecil Kellaway ........................................................Nick Smith
Hume Cronyn ......................................................Arthur Keats
Audrey Totter .....................................................Madge Garland
Leon Ames .........................................................Kyle Sackett
Alan Reed ....................................................Ezra Liam Kennedy
Wally Cassell ..............................................................Ben
Jeff York .................................................................Blair
DID YOU KNOW? It took twelve years to get James M. Cain’s book filmed
because of the powerful resistance of the Production Code Authority (PCA), the
official censoring body of Hollywood that found everything about the book
objectionable. Its tawdry sexuality, adultery, murder, and the dishonesty of the
lawyers and insurance-company officials were all deemed unsuitable for audience
sensibilities. The PCA felt so strongly about Cain’s book that in February of 1934
it warned RKO, which wanted to make the motion picture, that they would never
allow it to be released. Columbia and Warner Brothers, also interested in the
rights, were also told that the film could never receive approval. Within two hours
of Columbia’s accepting the PCA verdict, MGM acquired the rights, convinced it
213
could get a screenplay that would pass muster. But April of the same year, MGM,
too, became convinced that it could not get approval and shelved it. Six years
later, a script was submitted that removed the adultery, virtually all of the sex, and
the murder attempts on Nick, who would die accidentally. Even then, the PCA
judged that it was too sordid, and it was again abandoned. The enormous
popularity of Cain’s Double Indemnity revived interest in the earlier novel, and in
May of 1945 a script was approved, restoring all but some of the more graphic sex
to Cain’s original version. Lana Turner, the ultrasexy star, initially turned down
the role because of the steaminess of the subject but was finally persuaded to
take the part.
THE STORY: Drifter Frank Chambers stops at a roadside diner, spots the
luscious Cora, and takes a job offered by her older, alcoholic husband, Nick.
Frank and Cora are immediately attracted to each other, begin an illicit affair, and
they leave, but Cora changes her mind and they return to the diner. Wanting a
better life with Frank, both financially and romantically, Cora convinces him to
help her kill her husband so they can be together and collect his insurance
money. Just as Cora smashes Nick’s head with a bottle, planning to make his
death look like a bathtub accident, their cat trips a power line, plunging the diner
into darkness and foiling the plan.
Frank and Cora make a second attempt to kill Nick, getting him drunk and
staging an automobile accident, and this time they are successful, though they
have made District Attorney Kyle Sackett suspicious. Sackett tricks Frank into
signing a document that states that Cora tried to kill him and Nick, which con-
vinces Cora to sign a confession. An agreement is reached in which Cora pleads
guilty to manslaughter. On probation, she and Frank do not see or speak to each
other because of mutual distrust, but then they decide to marry and run the diner
together.
When Cora visits her sick mother, Frank has an affair with a woman he meets at
the train station, and Cora learns of it. She tells Frank that she is pregnant.
Distrustful and disappointed with him, she decides to kill herself by going for a
long swim in the ocean and, too exhausted to return to shore, drowning. When
she tells Frank to swim back without her, they realize that they really do love each
other and he manages to save her. On the drive home, he loses control of the car
and she is killed.
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Frank is arrested and convicted for murdering Cora. Although he got away
with the murder of Nick, he now faces execution for a crime he did not commit.
***
Like Double Indemnity and so many other noir novels and films, The Post-
man Always Rings Twice is driven by the bad girl who becomes the object of
sexual desire for a man who will do virtually anything to have her, usually
including murder. The novel, written in 1934, paved the road for all the noir
fiction and film that followed.
Some elements of The Postman Always Rings Twice sprang from real life,
notably the infamous Ruth Snyder murder case, in which the defendant mur-
dered her husband with the help of her lover, who she then tried to poison. Cora
was modeled on a girl who pumped Cain’s gas at a service station. She was kind
of cheap, Cain acknowledged (more like the Cora of the novel than the Cora of
the motion picture, who just seemed too classy to be working in a cheap road-
side diner), but so sexy that she stuck in his memory.
As inappropriate as Lana Turner seemed for the role of Cora, surely the
oddest bit of casting was having Cecil Kellaway as Nick, who in the novel was
a rough, drunken boor who treated his wife very badly. It is stretching credulity
to think that Lana Turner would ever have been married to Cecil Kellaway.
When the major studios were unable to get the motion picture past the cen-
sors, Cain adapted The Postman Always Rings Twice for the stage in 1936,
hoping that a Broadway smash would grant it an aura of respectability. The
play flopped, as did a French film version, Le Dernier Tournant, made in 1939,
and an Italian version, Ossessione, made in 1942.
A commercially successful remake was released in 1981, starring Jack
Nicholson as Frank and Jessica Lange as Cora. David Mamet’s screenplay was
far more faithful to the novel, but the heightened violence did not enhance the
film.
John Garfield had been released from military service because of a bad heart.
It was reported at the time that Turner and Garfield had even more chemistry off
the set than on it but that Garfield decided to otherwise occupy his free time for
fear that he would have a heart attack.
BEST LINE: Where have you heard this before? In a line used so
215
frequently during the past half century that it is more self-parody than a
cliché, Frank Chambers’s line to Madge Garland, the girl he picks up at the
train station, was used here first: “With my brains and your looks,” he
tells her, “we could go places.”
216
THE BIG SLEEP
1946

PRODUCER: Howard Hawks
SCREENWRITERS: William Faulkner, Jules Furthman, and Leigh
Brackett
SOURCE: The Big Sleep, novel by Raymond
Chandler
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Humphrey Bogart ..................................................Philip Marlowe
Lauren Bacall ............................................Vivian Sternwood Rutledge
John Ridgely .........................................................Eddie Mars
Martha Vickers .................................................Carmen Sternwood
Dorothy Malone ..............................................bookshop proprietress
Peggy Knudsen ...................................................Mrs. Eddie Mars
Regis Toomey ........................................................Bernie Ohls
Charles Waldron ................................................General Sternwood
DID YOU KNOW? One of the most complicated plots in mystery fiction is that
of The Big Sleep, both in novel form and in the film version. Playing Marlowe,
Bogart asked director Howard Hawks who had murdered Owen Taylor, the
Sternwood chauffeur whose car is being pulled out of the water. Hawks admitted
that he didn’t know but that he’d ask William Faulkner, who had worked on that
sequence. Faulkner, too, said he didn’t actually know, so Hawks wired Chandler,
who immediately fired back, “The butler did it.”
THE STORY: The wealthy and dying General Sternwood summons Philip
Marlowe to his home to stop the blackmailer who has pornographic pictures of
his daughter, the very young Carmen Sternwood. After the family chauffeur
murders the blackmailer, he, too, is found dead. The photos fall into the hands of
the blackmailer’s boss, who tries to sell them to Carmen’s sister, Vivian, and he,
217
too, is killed. Further murders, double crosses, and general bad behavior abound
in a plot too convoluted for Chandler to write, for Faulkner to adapt, and for
anyone to adequately summarize.
***
Humphrey Bogart again plays a tough private eye in The Big Sleep, just as he
had in The Maltese Falcon, doing for Chandler what he had done for Hammett:
He immortalized a fictional character while also making it very much his own,
bearing small resemblance to the character in either book. The viewer is not
watching a Philip Marlowe movie, he is watching a Bogart movie, which appears
to be just fine with all concerned.
It was reported that the on-screen chemistry of Bogart and Bacall in Howard
Hawks’s To Have and Have Not was so great that the public clearly wanted to see
them together again, and Bacall was hired to play opposite Bogart. The film was
completed in the beginning of 1945, but because the studio wanted more and
more of Bogart and Bacall, there had to be additional shooting and editing, which
held the release of the film for about a year and a half. The extra time given to
Bacall resulted in a smaller and smaller role for Martha Vickers as the young,
drug-using, nymphomaniacal sister of Bacall.
Chandler was so pleased to have Bogart play Marlowe (incredibly, a letter he
wrote in 1939, before Bogart made Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon and
hence before he was a star, suggested that he thought Bogart would be the
perfect screen Marlowe) that he sold the motion-picture rights to The Big Sleep
for $10,000, even though the studio had told Hawks he could pay up to $50,000
for the rights. Chandler was simply too happy about the deal to consider negoti-
ating a higher fee.
The 1978 remake starring Robert Mitchum as an excellent, if too old, Marlowe
was more true to the novel, but it was updated and ludicrously shot on location
in London.
BEST LINE: Vivian Sternwood has rebuked Marlowe for his offensiveness. He
replies, “I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. I don’t like them myself.
They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings.”
218
REBECCA
1940

STUDIO: Selznick Studios
SCREENWRITERS: Robert E. Sherwood and Joan
Harrison; adapted by Philip
MacDonald and Michael Hogan
SOURCE: Rebecca, novel by Daphne du Maurier
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Laurence Olivier .................................................Maxim de Winter
Joan Fontaine .....................................................Mrs. de Winter
George Sanders .......................................................Jack Favell
Judith Anderson ....................................................Mrs. Danvers
Nigel Bruce ..........................................................Giles Lacey
Reginald Denny ....................................................Frank Crawley
C. Aubrey Smith ...................................................Colonel Julyan
Gladys Cooper .....................................................Beatrice Lacey
Florence Bates ...................................................Mrs. Van Hopper
DID YOU KNOW? With both of the principal actors being nominated for
Academy Awards, one would think that casting had been not only inspired, but
simple. Nothing could be further from the truth. The director, Alfred Hitchcock,
and the producer, David O. Selznick, both brilliant and stubborn moviemakers
with excellent taste, disagreed on casting from the outset. Selznick bought rights
to the Daphne du Maurier novel especially for Carol Lombard and planned to
have Ronald Colman opposite her. Colman turned down the role because he did
not want to play a murderer and he regarded the film as a “woman-starring”
vehicle. Selznick’s next two choices were William Powell and Laurence Olivier,
with Leslie Howard and David Niven also considered. Olivier, as an emerging star
after his outstanding performance in Wuthering Heights, was willing to work
219
for $100,000 less than the already established Powell, and so he was given the
role.
Selznick’s first choice for the role of Mrs. de Winter, Lombard, also did not
take the part. He then decided he would conduct a major search for the female
lead, as he had done for Gone With the Wind, which had not yet finished filming
when he began work on Rebecca. He wanted Olivia de Havilland, which pre-
sented numerous problems: She was under contract to Warner Brothers, which
was reluctant to loan her out to other studios, she was committed to begin
principal photography on Raffles, and she was not interested in competing for
the role with her sister, Joan Fontaine, with whom she had a lifelong animosity.
Olivier desperately wanted the role for his wife, Vivien Leigh, while Fontaine’s
agent was pushing his own wife, Margaret Sullavan. Selznick also considered
Loretta Young, Anne Baxter, Anita Louise, and more than twenty others for the
role, finally settling on Fontaine over the objections of Hitchcock and others at
the studio who claimed she had not established herself as a star—not surpris-
ing since she was only twenty-two at the time.
THE STORY: The shy, young paid companion to a wealthy socialite meets
the wealthy Maxim de Winter in Monte Carlo and is enchanted by his charm,
sophistication, and good looks, happily accepting when he proposes marriage.
Her joy is dramatically diminished when she arrives with her husband at his
magnificent mansion, Manderley, whose housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, does
everything in her considerable power to make her feel unwelcome.
At every opportunity, Mrs. Danvers contrasts the demure second Mrs. de
Winter with Rebecca, Maxim’s first wife, who was more beautiful, more sophis-
ticated, and more elegant. Implicit, too, is that Rebecca was more loved by
Maxim and certainly more respected and admired by the housekeeper.
Soon after Mrs. de Winter settles into Manderley, a boat is wrecked near the
shore, and during the rescue attempt, another sunken boat is discovered to
contain the body of Rebecca. For the first time, Maxim tells his bride of his
miserable marriage to Rebecca, who had flaunted her infidelities. When Rebecca
told him that she was pregnant with another man’s child, Maxim had struck her
and she smashed her head when she fell. He put her body into a boat and sank
it. A new inquest is held, and it appears that de Winter will be charged with
220
murder, until Rebecca’s doctor testifies that his patient had been dying of
cancer and contemplated suicide.
Maxim and his bride are now freed of the specter of Rebecca, but Mrs. Danvers,
still devoted to her former mistress and the house she loved so much, commits
suicide by setting fire to Manderley.
***
While Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first American film, it is difficult to tell, since
virtually all the actors (Olivier, Fontaine, Sanders, Anderson, Bruce, Denny, Smith,
and Cooper) are British, as is the setting and the author (du Maurier) of the novel
on which the film was based.
In addition to the difficulties with casting, there were terrible script problems.
The original treatment was written by Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, and Joan Harrison,
with whom he worked longer than virtually anyone else. It was submitted to
Selznick, who loathed it, returning it with a memo longer than the treatment itself.
Hitchcock once said that he had finally finished reading it. He said it in 1969.
Hitchcock had changed nearly everything from the book, and Selznick insisted
that the script be started again. Selznick had promised Daphne du Maurier (to
whom he had paid $5,000 for the rights) the film would remain faithful to the
novel, after she expressed such disappointment in the film of Jamaica Inn, which
Hitchcock had filmed and changed unrecognizably.
In spite of the endless problems incurred in making Rebecca, it was a huge box-
office success and received eleven Academy Award nominations, winning only
for Best Picture and Cinematography. Other nominations went to Hitchcock for
Best Director, Olivier for Best Actor, Joan Fontaine for Best Actress, and Judith
Anderson-for Best Supporting Actress.
BEST LINE: The most memorable line is the first of the picture, “Last night I
dreamt I went to Manderley again,” but since it is also the opening line of Daphne
du Maurier’s novel, no credit goes to the screenwriter. For much of the film, the
second Mrs. de Winter (unnamed in both the book and film) worries that her
husband loves the dead Rebecca so much that he cannot love her. In a desperate
moment, she begs for reassurance that they are, in fact, happily married. “We are
happy, aren’t we?” When Maxim does not respond, she asks why he won’t
answer. “How can I answer you,” he finally replies, “when I don’t know the
answer myself. If you say we’re happy, let’s leave it at that. Happiness is something
I know nothing about.”
221
WITNESS FOR THE
PROSECUTION
1957

PRODUCER: Arthur Hornblow
DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
SCREENWRITERS: Billy Wilder and Harry Kurnitz; adapted by Larry
Marcus
SOURCE: Witness for the Prosecution, short story
and play by Agatha Christie
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Marlene Dietrich ...................................................Christine Vole
Tyrone Power .......................................................Leonard Vole
Charles Laughton ................................................Sir Wilfrid Robarts
Elsa Lanchester ...............................................................................Miss Plimsoll
John Williams ......................................................Brogan-Moore
Henry Daniell ..........................................................Mayhew
Una O’Connor ....................................................Janet McKenzie
Ian Wolfe ...............................................................Carter
Torin Thatcher ...........................................................Judge
DID YOU KNOW? Being too good an actress in Witness for the Prosecution
probably cost Marlene Dietrich an Academy Award nomination. Although famous
for her sultry singing voice and gorgeous legs, Dietrich never made anyone’s top
ten list for the best actress in Hollywood. She had always been offered a limited
choice of roles—the femme fatale—and she yearned to prove she had a greater
range than that, so she desperately wanted the part of Christine Vole. Director Bill
Wilder obliged her. She and her film husband developed a plot in which it was
vital that she wear a disguise good enough to fool their barrister. Dietrich played
the part of a cockney tart to perfection, fooling both the film barrister and
222
audiences. She played it so well, in fact, that critics and Hollywood insiders
refused to believe that she was good enough to have actually played both roles.
However, Elsa Lanchester, the nurse in the film and Charles Laughton’s wife in
real life, spoke freely about how often Dietrich showed up at the couple’s house
to borrow appropriate clothing and study a cockney accent with the accomplished
Laughton. There are even production stills showing Dietrich, without makeup,
rehearsing the role. When Academy Award time came, however, Dietrich was one
of the few principals who did not receive a nomination. She was defeated on two
fronts: First, the rumor that she did not play both parts persisted, casting enough
doubt that members of the Academy were reluctant to vote for her. Second, an
aura of secrecy about the film prevailed, with the studio’s entire publicity campaign
focused on asking viewers not to reveal the stunning twists in the plot. Therefore,
Dietrich’s dual role went unknown by all except those who had actually seen the
picture.
THE STORY: Befriended by Emily French, a wealthy old woman, Leonard Vole
grows very close to her, raising suspicion with Janet MacKenzie, her housekeeper.
When Mrs. French is murdered and Leonard inherits 80,000 pounds, he is accused
of murdering the elderly woman.
The great barrister, Sir Wilfrid Robarts, weakened by a heart condition, has
been told to slow down and take only bland civil cases, but when he meets
Leonard, he likes the challenge of what appears to be an open-and-shut case
against him and agrees to defend him.
Leonard tells Sir Wilfrid that his only alibi is his wife, Christine. When Christine
shows up at Sir Wilfrid’s house to tell him that she is providing an alibi only
because her husband wants her to, he becomes suspicious of her. She later
admits that she and Leonard were never legally married, as she already had a
husband when they met, fell in love, and married.
At the trial, after much legal thrusting and parrying, the prosecution shocks Sir
Wilfrid by calling as a witness Christine Vole, who admits that she is not really
married to Leonard and is therefore able to testify against him, which she does,
telling the judge that she was forced to provide an alibi and that her husband had
admitted the murder to her. Vole stands in the dock, shouting, “Lies!” in horror
and disbelief.
Sir Wilfrid’s only defense is to make Christine appear to be a liar, but it’s a weak
defense and his client seems doomed. As they await the verdict, the barrister
223
receives a telephone call offering vital evidence for sale. He meets with a cockney
slattern and buys love letters that Christine had written to a mysterious lover.
The next day, the trial is reopened and he confronts Christine with the letters,
proving that she had lied to be rid of Leonard so she could be with another man.
The jury returns a “not guilty” verdict, but Sir Wilfrid, uneasy about the case,
realizes that it was all a sham when Christine walks up to him, alone in the court-
room, and speaks to him in the same cockney accent. It was the only way to
ensure her husband’s acquittal, she tells him.
When Leonard also walks into the courtroom, he admits that he actually did kill
the old lady but knows he is safe because he cannot be tried again under the rules
of double jeopardy. He then shocks his wife by telling her he is leaving her for
another woman, whereupon Christine grabs a knife and kills him. Sir Wilfrid then
agrees to defend Christine.
***
Witness for the Prosecution began as a short story, published in 1933 in The
Hound of Death and Other Stories. Agatha Christie rewrote and expanded it for
a stage version in 1953; it was a sensation in London. It is this version that was
then filmed, the only major change being to add Nurse Plimsoll for comic relief.
Until Murder On the Orient Express (1974), this was the only motion picture
made from her works for which Christie had a kind word.
As the barrister is supposed to have a heart condition, an additional element of
suspense in the film is whether Sir Wilfrid will survive the rigors of a trial. Charles
Laughton wasn’t sure that he could successfully act the part of someone having
a heart attack on screen so he tried it out at home, faking an attack in his swim-
ming pool, almost giving his wife, Elsa Lanchester a heart attack.
Ironically, this was Tyrone Power’s last completed film because, a few months
after completion, he actually did die of a heart attack.
Academy Award nominations went to Witness for the Prosecution for Best
Picture, Billy Wilder for Best Director, Charles Laughton for Best Actor, Elsa
Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress, and in several technical categories.
A television adaptation was made for British television in 1982, seen later in the
United States on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
BEST LINE: Leonard Vole, afraid that he will be sent to prison for murder, says
to his barrister, “But this is England, where I thought you never arrest, let alone
convict, people for crimes they have not committed.” Sir Wilfrid replies, “We try
not to make a habit of it.”
224
BODY HEAT
1981
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Ladd Company/Warner Brothers
PRODUCER: Fred T. Gallo
DIRECTOR: Lawrence Kasdan
SCREENWRITER: Lawrence Kasdan
SOURCE: Original story
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
William Hurt ........................................................Ned Racine
Kathleen Turner .....................................................Matty Walker
Richard Crenna ...................................................Edmund Walker
Ted Danson .....................................................Peter Lowenstein
Mickey Rourke ......................................................Teddy Lewis
J. A. Preston ........................................................Oscar Grace
Kim Zimmer ..................................................Mary Ann Simpson
Jane Halleran ............................................................Stella
DID YOU KNOW? Kathleen Turner, the sexy black widow of Body Heat,
makes her screen debut as the star of this very successful noir film. Amazingly,
the superbly written and directed motion picture is also the first effort of Lawrence
Kasdan, who fulfilled both roles. Kasdan’s wife, Meg, also had a small role as a
nurse.
THE STORY: Ned Racine, a notoriously incompetent lawyer and the town
rake, spots the shapely Matty Walker and goes after her with nearly immediate
success. They begin a torrid affair that culminates in a plan to murder her husband,
which will enable them to be together always and also, not so incidentally, allow
her to claim a fortune as his widow. Together they plan and carry out a near
perfect crime, against the advice of Teddy Lewis, a small-time crook and expert
bomb-maker, whom Racine once kept out of jail. Lewis tells him that fifty things
can go wrong when you plan arson, and a genius can think of and avoid twenty-
five of them. “And believe me,” he tells the lawyer, “you’re no genius.”
225
Lewis is right, of course, and local cop Oscar Grace discovers small problems
and oversights that point to Matty as the killer. However, all the missteps even-
tually lead Grace away from her and toward Ned.
When the ruthless Matty sends Ned to a booby-trapped boathouse, Racine
realizes that he has been set up and double-crossed by his lover. He forces her to
open the door that will explode the bomb, and as he waits in the darkness, she
walks to the trap and sets off a huge explosion. He is arrested and, while lying
awake one night, has an inspiration: She’s alive!
BEST LINE: Racine flirts with Matty Walker, and she reminds him that she’s
married and not interested. He pursues her, refusing to take no for an answer.
Finally, she says to him, “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”
226
THE LADY VANISHES
1938

STUDIO: Gaumont-British
PRODUCER: Edward Black
SCREENWRITERS: Sidney Gilliatt and Frank Launder; adaptation by
Alma Reville
SOURCE: The Wheel Spins, novel by Ethel Lina White
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Margaret Lockwood .................................................Iris Henderson
Michael Redgrave ........................................................Gilbert
Paul Lukas ........................................................Dr. Hartz
Dame May Whitty ......................................................Miss Froy
Googie Withers ..........................................................Blanche
Cecil Parker .......................................................Mr. Todhunter
Linden Travers ....................................................Mrs. Todhunter
Naunton Wayne ........................................................Caldicott
Basil Radford ...........................................................Charters
DID YOU KNOW? The concept of a person being seen by a large number of
people, then disappearing, followed by everyone asserting that the person never
existed, is a popular story, with a seed of truth in the Paris Exposition at the turn
of the century. It seems that the person who “disappeared” there had contracted
the plague, and in order to protect the enormous investment of the Exposition as
well as to prevent public panic, the person was swept away to a hospital. Everyone
with whom he or she had come in contact was sworn to secrecy. The same device
was used by Cornell Woolrich in a story and was the basis for the film So Long at
the Fair (1950).
THE STORY: Wealthy Iris Henderson is returning from a holiday in the Balkans
and meets the septuagenarian Miss Froy (“rhymes with toy,” she tells people)
227
aboard the train. The lovable governess disappears during the course of the
trip home. Henderson appears to be the only person interested in locating
her, for virtually all the passengers deny ever seeing the old lady. Only Gilbert,
a musicologist, believes the lovely young woman, or at least seems to, because
he is even more interested in the young woman than the old one. Viewers
eventually learn that the passengers are part of a vast spy ring and that Miss
Froy, far from being the gentle and apparently scatterbrained old maid she
conveys, is in fact a counterespionage agent.
***
The Lady Vanishes is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most entertaining and
enduring films. Although ranking high on the suspense level, it is so witty
that it might easily be viewed as a comedy. The performances of Naunton
Wayne and Basil Radford as a pair of twits mainly concerned with getting
back to England in order to see some of the cricket matches at Manchester,
utterly unaware of the chaos of World War II looming inevitably, were so
perfect that the pair went on to play similar characters in several other films.
On a more serious level, they were used by Hitchcock to illustrate British
noninterventionists, as exemplified by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
Hitchcock’s political position was in deep contrast to that of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gave a Best Picture nomination to a
foreign-language film for the first time. Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion, a mani-
festo for isolationism and pacifism, apparently captured the mood of the Acad-
emy as well as of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave it an unsolicited
endorsement.
Hitchcock won the New York Film Critics’ Award for his direction of The
Lady Vanishes. Having undergone one name change from the Ethel Lina White
book, The Wheel Spins, The Lady Vanishes was also released as Lost Lady.
In one of those decisions Hollywood executives make that leave most view-
ers flabbergasted and disgusted, some geniuses decided that a remake of
Hitchcock’s masterpiece would be a good idea. This occurred in 1979 when
the aptly named (in this case) Rank Organisation miscast Elliott Gould in a
film so bad that you may regard yourself as fortunate indeed that you have
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never seen it. A good cast (Cybill Shepherd, Angela Lansbury, Herbert Lom,
etc.) reached their cinematic nadirs in this colossal blunder.
BEST LINE: Iris Henderson, returning to England from yet another holiday:
“I’ve been everywhere, done everything. What is there for me but marriage?”
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THE KILLERS
1946
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCER: Mark Hellinger
DIRECTOR: Robert Siodmak
SCREENWRITERS: Anthony Veiller and (uncredited) John
Huston
SOURCE: “The Killers,” short story by Ernest
Hemingway
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Burt Lancaster ..................................Ole “Swede” Anderson, also Peter Lund
Ava Gardner ........................................................Kitty Collins
Edmond O’Brien ...............................................................................Jim Reardon
Albert Dekker .....................................................Big Jim Colfax
Sam Levene .................................................Det. Lt. Sam Levinsky
Charles McGraw .............................................................Al
William Conrad ............................................................Mak
DID YOU KNOW? When Mark Hellinger decided to make a movie from Ernest
Hemingway’s landmark short story, “The Killers,” he hired John Huston to write
the screenplay. The job was more than an adaptation, because Hemingway’s
story never lets the reader know why “the Swede” is being killed. The opening
sequence, in a little diner in which two hit men thuggishly ask about their intended
victim, is all that Hemingway wrote. All the rest—the robbery, the girl, the double
and triple crosses—was created by Huston. When Hellinger and Huston, two of
the most overblown egos in Hollywood, clashed, Hellinger removed Huston’s
name from the writing credits; only the name of Huston’s collaborator, Anthony
Veiller, appears on the motion picture.
THE STORY: Two tough guys, Al and Mak, enter a little diner in Brentwood
looking for Ole “the Swede” Anderson. When he doesn’t show up as expected,
they go to hunt for him. A young man at the counter goes to warn the Swede that
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they’re coming, but the Swede refuses to run, accepting the inevitability of his
imminent death. He lies back in his squalid room until the killers walk in and shoot
him.
Insurance investigator Jim Reardon tracks down the beneficiary of Anderson’s
life-insurance policy—a hotel maid—and begins to trace the life of the dead man,
connecting him to a robbery at a hat factory that netted more than a quarter of a
million dollars.
When Reardon locates Anderson’s old friend police lieutenant Sam Levinsky,
the early years of the ex-fighter come into focus as Levinsky’s wife, once the
Swede’s girl, tells Reardon how he met Kitty Collins, the girlfriend of gangster Big
Jim Colfax, and instantly fell for her.
Kitty and Anderson became an item, and when she was caught with stolen
jewelry, he took the fall for her, going away for three years. After his release,
Anderson found Kitty had gone back to Colfax while he was in jail, and when the
gangster planned a big robbery, the Swede decided to participate. Kitty came to
Anderson in the middle of the night to warn him that the gang planned to cheat
him of his share, so he took vengeance by stealing the entire $250,000. As planned,
he and Kitty went to an Atlantic City hotel, but, two days later she disappeared—
with the money. When he discovered that she’d left him, he tried to commit
suicide, but the chambermaid saved him.
Reardon, still tracking the money, finds Colfax, now a successful contractor,
which leads him to a meeting with Kitty. He has clearly been set up when the two
men who killed the Swede show up and try to kill him, but he and Levinsky turn
the tables and shoot them while Kitty escapes.
At Big Jim Colfax’s house, Reardon and the cop find him dying. Kitty arrives,
and they learn that she left the Swede in Atlantic City to return to Colfax, who had
planned the double cross in order to get the entire payroll for himself. As he takes
his last breaths, Kitty begs him to tell the cops that she’s innocent.
***
Both Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster made their screen debuts in The Killers,
remarkable for a major production. Lancaster, the big, rugged, handsome former
circus performer with a chiseled body of steel, has, in the best noir tradition,
totally succumbed to the charms of the wrong woman. He is so emasculated that,
when he learns two hit men are coming to kill him, he doesn’t even get out of bed
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to run or fight. When he’s betrayed by Ava Gardner, who has fled with a quarter
of a million dollars, he never thinks of the money but tries to jump out a window
because he’s lost the girl who cold-bloodedly double-crossed him. He plays the
same beaten-down role in Criss Cross.
Gardner, the extraordinarily beautiful and sensual actress who could turn most
men to jelly, did the same in real life. Married to three famous men (Mickey
Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra), she was well known to lead an active . .
. uh, social life. Among her myriad affairs was one with the powerful Howard
Hughes, who was more active in Hollywood in the 1940s than he was with his
airplane company. It has been reported that Robert Mitchum actually telephoned
Hughes to ask permission to sleep with the sultry actress. Hughes is said to have
replied, “If you don’t, they’ll think you’re a pansy.”
Robert Siodmak was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Director.
The musical score by Miklos Rozsa introduced the memorable “dum da dum
dum” theme made famous by the television series Dragnet.
The Killers was remade in 1964 with Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Angie
Dickinson, and Ronald Reagan—in his last screen role—as the brutal gangster.
Originally made for television, it was regarded as too violent and had theatrical
release instead.
BEST LINE: Reardon has tracked down Big Jim Colfax, who denies any
knowledge of knowing the Swede. As Reardon relates the history that Colfax
already knows, the tale turns to Kitty and the Swede’s relationship. “That guy,
what’s his name? The Swede?” asks Colfax. “Never had a chance, did he? You
might say Kitty Collins signed his death warrant.”
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VERTIGO
1958

STUDIO: Paramount
SCREENWRITERS: Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor
SOURCE: The Living and the Dead (translation of D’Entre Les
Morts) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Stewart ..............................................John “Scottie” Ferguson
Kim Novak ............................................Judy Barton/Madeleine Elster
Barbara Bel Geddes ...................................................Midge Wood
Tom Helmore .......................................................Gavin Elster
Henry Jones ............................................................judge
Konstantine Shayne .....................................................Pop Liebl
DID YOU KNOW? Unlike most of the ice blondes whom Hitchcock used in his
films and with whom he was always slightly in love, Kim Novak was always held
in low regard by the director. He had wanted Vera Miles for the lead in Vertigo,
but when she became pregnant with her third child, he was forced to replace her
with Novak, which was probably the reason for his instant and apparently baseless
dislike. Novak had been promised a fee for being loaned to Warner Brothers by
Paramount and refused to work until she received the check. By the time she had
been paid, Miles had given birth and was available, but Hitchcock, angry with her
for getting pregnant and mining his plans to make her a star, proceeded with
Novak. His great satisfaction, he admitted years later, occurred in the scene in
which Madeleine fakes a suicide attempt by jumping into San Francisco Bay.
Hitchcock called for multiple retakes, forcing Novak to repeatedly leap, fully
clothed and made up, into the studio’s large tank that replicated the bay. As she
was pulled, drenched, out of the water, Hitchcock would call for yet another
233
retake, forcing her to be remade up, have her hair done, and change into fresh
clothes, only to have to do it again.
THE STORY: John “Scottie” Ferguson is chasing a criminal across the rooftops
of San Francisco when he is struck by an attack of acrophobia and its resultant
vertigo, causing the death of a fellow policeman. He resigns from the police
department and is asked by an old friend, Gavin Elster, to follow his wife,
Madeleine, who he claims is haunted by the ghost of her mad great grandmother
and is likely to commit suicide. She makes an attempt, leaping into San Francisco
Bay, and Ferguson saves her, bringing her back to his apartment, undressing her,
and putting her in his bed until she recovers. As he sees her more often, he falls
in love with her, but she makes another attempt, this time leaping from a church
bell tower, and because of his illness, he is unable to save her as he watches her
body plummet past him to the ground below.
In pain and guilt-ridden, he has a nervous breakdown, but an old girlfriend,
Midge, nurses him back until he encounters Judy Barton—a brunette who bears
an uncanny resemblance to his dead love. She swears she has never heard of
Madeleine, and he pursues her, forcing her to change clothing styles and even
her hair color to make her look more like the woman he lost.
He eventually learns that Madeleine was not Elster’s wife, but his mistress and
they had meticulously planned the murder of his wife in such a way that Ferguson
would swear he had witnessed Madeleine’s suicide. Anxious to learn the entire
truth, he forces Judy to the top of the bell tower, where she tells him again of her
genuine love for him. Frightened by the approach of a shadowy stranger, she
steps back and plunges from the roof, smashed on the pavement—this time dead
for real.
***
Vertigo, one of Hitchcock’s suspense masterpieces, was based on a novel by
Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, The Living and the Dead, which had been
translated from the French D’Entre Les Morts. The writers had specifically writ-
ten this book so that Hitchcock would buy it and film it. They had written several
other books with the same plan after they learned that Hitchcock had tried to
acquire the rights to their novel Les Diaboliques. Had Hitchcock failed to acquire
their book, they reasoned, they would have been able to sell it to a French
director with little difficulty after the great success of Les Diaboliques.
234
Curiously, although Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for five Academy Awards
as Best Director and Vertigo is called his masterpiece, the film received not a
single nomination.
Hitchcock Alert: In one of his less creative appearances, the director can be
seen crossing the street.
BEST LINE: Madeleine, on her way to the fatal bell tower, asks John, “Do you
believe I love you?” “Yes,” he replies. “Even if you lose me,” she continues,
“then you’ll know I loved you and I wanted to go on loving you.”
235
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
1995
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: PolyGram
PRODUCERS: Bryan Singer and Michael McDonnell
DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer
SCREENWRITER: Christopher McQuarrie
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gabriel Byrne .......................................................Dean Keaton
Kevin Spacey .................................................Ronald “Verbal” Kint
Stephen Baldwin ................................................Michael McManus
Kevin Pollak .......................................................Todd Hockney
Chazz Palminteri .....................................................Dave Kujan
Pete Postlethwaite ..................................................Mr. Kobayashi
Suzy Amis ........................................................Edie Finneran
Benicio Del Toro .....................................................Fred Fenster
Giancarlo Esposito ......................................................Jack Baer
DID YOU KNOW? One of the most improbable and enigmatic figures in
cinema history is Keyser Soze, the ultimate criminal who virtually no one living
has seen, though mythology surrounds him to the point where he is described
as “the devil himself.” As the police attempt to learn his identity, audiences are
given several clues, though they are admittedly abstruse. The role had always
been intended for Kevin Spacey, who has the same initials as Keyser Soze.
Soze is referred to in The Usual Suspects as being Turkish, and the Turkish
word soze means to talk, an obvious clue that Soze may be Verbal Kint. (Well,
obvious if you speak Turkish.)
Five different people played the part of Soze at various times in the film. Both
Gabriel Byrne’s and Kevin Spacey’s faces are shown as Soze, though not very
clearly; an unnamed actor whose long hair obscures his face plays him in the
236
flashback sequence where he is seen murdering his wife and children; and
producer/director Brian Singer filmed himself and a friend when Soze’s feet
were shown and when he lights a cigarette.
There was so much secrecy about the film, even on the set and among the
principals, that Gabriel Byrne thought he was Soze until he actually saw the
completed film.
THE STORY: A boat at a San Pedro pier explodes and the police discover
$91,000,000, twenty-seven corpses, a frightened Hungarian terrorist, and a
crippled two-bit crook named Roger “Verbal” (because he talks too much)
Kint, who is brought in to explain what happened.
The events are all “the cops’ fault,” he explains, because five crooks—the
usual suspects—had been brought together for a lineup involving a truck
hijacking and then thrown into a cell while awaiting their lawyers to post bail.
“You don’t put guys like that in a room together,” Kint points out.
One of the five is Verbal and another is Dean Keaton, a crooked cop who
had been caught and indicted but who wants to go straight. He is talked into
one more job with the other four, and they set out to make a killing that is
bigger and more complicated—and more dangerous—than they had ever
expected.
They are approached by a Mr. Kobayashi, a representative of Keyser Soze,
a legendary crime lord so powerful and ruthless that those few who know of
his existence are paralyzed with fear at the mere sound of his name.
The plot involves an enormous drug transaction and a show-down at a
boat that will ultimately be destroyed, taking with it the entire gang with the
exception of Verbal. When the police interrogation finally concludes, Verbal
is released. As he walks a few blocks away from the police station, his limp
disappears, just as Detective Dave Kujan spots trivial clues that suggest that
Verbal had fabricated every word of the extraordinary story he had told.
***
Christopher McQuarrie won an Oscar for his very original and highly intel-
ligent screenplay, in which he created one of the most challenging, creative,
and witty mystery films of recent years—an old-fashioned puzzle story up-
dated with contemporary characters, dialogue, and restrained violence, with-
out a car chase in sight.
237
The name of the character played by Gabriel Byrne, Dean Keaton, is Byrne’s
real name.
The title of the motion picture is a reference to Casablanca, in which the French
policeman Louis Renault (played by Claude Rains) listlessly tells his underlings
to round up the usual suspects. The name of the production company, Blue
Parrot/Bad Hat Harry Productions, is also a partial reference to Casablanca. The
Blue Parrot was the name of the nightclub owned by Ferrari, the Sydney Greenstreet
character. The other half of the name is a reference to Jaws, where one character
on the beach greets another who is wearing a bathing cap, and says, “That’s a
bad hat, Harry.”
Kevin Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
BEST LINE: When asked whether he believes Keyser Soze exists, Verbal Kint
replies, “I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.”
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SHADOW OF A DOUBT
1943

STUDIO: Universal
PRODUCER: Jack H. Skirball
SCREENWRITERS: Thornton Wilder, Alma Reville and Sally
Benson
SOURCE: Original story by Gordon McDonnell
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Teresa Wright .....................................................Charlie Newton
Joseph Cotten ................................................Uncle Charlie Oakley
Macdonald Carey ....................................................Jack Graham
Patricia Collinge ...................................................Emma Newton
Henry Travers .......................................................Joe Newton
Wallace Ford .......................................................Fred Saunders
Edna May Wonacott ..................................................Ann Newton
Hume Cronyn .....................................................Herb Hawkins
Charles Bates ......................................................Roger Newton
Wallace Ford .......................................................Fred Saunders
DID YOU KNOW? Shadow of a Doubt was based on a true story. In 1938, a
man who lived in New York went to a small California town named Hanford
ostensibly to visit his sister and her family, but he was actually trying to go into
hiding. His efforts failed when the law caught up with him, and he was arrested
for the murder of several rich women on the East Coast. Gordon McDonnell, a
playwright, read newspaper accounts of the incident and went to Hanford with
the idea of writing a play. He was married to Margaret McDonnell, the head of
Selznick Studio’s story department, who told Hitchcock that her husband had a
wonderful story idea that he hadn’t yet written. Hitchcock and the couple had
lunch together while McDonnell told the story, and Hitchcock told him to go
home and write it. He did, producing a nine-page treatment that the director gave
to Thornton Wilder to turn into a screenplay.
239
THE STORY: Charles Oakley travels from New York to Santa Rosa, California,
to visit his sister and her family. Unbeknownst to his family, he is suspected of
murdering three widows in the East and has come across the country to hide from
the police. Especially thrilled to meet him is Charlie, the lovely niece who was
named for him and with whom he seems to have a telepathic connection.
Charlie becomes utterly infatuated with her handsome uncle, who gives her an
emerald ring inscribed with the initials M.B. When she begins to hum “The Merry
Widow Waltz,” it obviously upsets him.
Jack Graham, a detective claiming to be a poll taker, and his partner, masquerad-
ing as a photographer, come to the house, ostensibly to interview the family but
really to take a picture of Oakley. Jack takes Charlie on a date and she guesses his
real identity. Although outraged, she agrees not to tell her uncle. As soon as they
separate, she rushes to the library to find the newspaper and spots an article her
uncle had removed earlier that day, a story about “The Merry Widow Murderer,”
one of whose victims had the initials M.B. Charlie becomes even more convinced
that her uncle is the killer when he talks with open hatred and contempt for
widows, likening them to swine.
When Oakley forces Charlie into a bar to discuss her evidently changed atti-
tude, he tells her she knows nothing of the world but, realizing that she knows the
truth about him, he agrees to leave town. When another suspect is killed in the
East, he assumes he is now safe and decides to stay in Santa Rosa. Still con-
cerned that his niece knows too much, however, he attempts to kill her by sawing
a wooden step, which nearly makes her fall, and again by trapping her in a garage
as a car motor runs.
Charlie pointedly wears the emerald ring to a party, convincing Oakley to leave
town. The family sees him off, and he traps Charlie on the train as it takes off and
tries to push her out as it speeds along the track, but in the struggle he trips and
falls in front of an oncoming train. As the town gives him a grand funeral, Charlie
and Jack agree to keep secret the truth about her psychotic uncle.
***
Often described as one of Hitchcock’s favorite films (although he denied it),
Shadow of a Doubt is one of only two of his movies in which the central character
is a villain. The other is Psycho, though an argument could be made that the
unseen Rebecca de Winter dominates Rebecca.
240
There is a strong autobiographical element in Shadow of a Doubt, probably
more than in any other of Hitchcock’s films. The mother of the family is named
Emma, just as Hitchcock’s mother was. Uncle Charlie is described as “neat and
fussy,” as the director often was, and an accident Oakley has on a bicycle is
precisely the same as one Hitchcock incurred in childhood. Before the accident,
Uncle Charlie is described as “such a quiet boy, always reading,” as was true of
Hitchcock, who also shared the villain’s nostalgic view that the world was once
a better place. Hitchcock also identified with Herbie Hawkins, who lives with a
sickly and demanding mother and who is devoted to crime stories, obsessively
talking about ways of murdering people.
Hitchcock wanted to film on location in Santa Rosa but was initially thwarted
when the town refused. Less than two decades earlier, it had been swindled out
of $25,000 when a production company said it wanted to build a studio but
instead sold worthless bonds and disappeared. The secretary of the Chamber of
Commerce, however, managed to convince the residents that Universal was a
legitimate company, and permission was granted.
Hume Cronyn made his screen debut as Herbie Hawkins.
Shadow of a Doubt was remade in 1958 as Step Down to Terror, a listless
production that was only a whisper better than the 1991 television movie using
the original title.
BEST LINE: At the funeral for Oakley, his niece tells detective Jack Graham
that her uncle saw the world as a terrible place. “It’s not quite as bad as that,” he
tells her. “Sometimes it needs a lot of watching. Things go crazy every now and
then. Like your Uncle Charlie.”
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THE CONVERSATION
1974
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Francis Ford Coppola
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
SCREENWRITER: Francis Ford Coppola
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gene Hackman ........................................................Harry Caul
John Cazale ................................................................Stan
Allen Garfield .......................................................Bernie Moran
Frederic Forrest ............................................................Mark
Cindy Williams .............................................................Ann
Harrison Ford ........................................................Martin Stett
Michael Higgins .............................................................Paul
Elizabeth MacRae ........................................................Meredith
Teri Garr ..................................................................Amy
DID YOU KNOW? Although one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed
crime stories ever to reach the screen, The Conversation was poorly promoted,
and released as if it were protected by the Official Secrets Act, and so was not a
big box-office success. The chosen few who actually got to see it became devotees
because of its sophisticated demonstration of bugging and surveillance techniques
that came just at the height of interest in the bungled Watergate break-in and
Richard Nixon’s secret tapes. While many people then assumed that the film was
inspired by those events, in fact Francis Ford Coppola had written the screenplay
many years earlier and production had already begun when the inept burglary
took place. The film failed to earn back its cost.
THE STORY: Harry Caul is a professional industrial spy who sells his services
to anyone who wants them. With the help of his hired hands, he tracks a young
couple, Mark and Ann, and gets photographs and audio tapes of their clandestine
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meetings for a man he doesn’t really know, “the Director” of a secretive company.
The tapes, gathered using highly powerful shotgun microphones among other
sophisticated techniques, are cleaned up and reveal a murder plot, with the
assumed victims to be the young couple because the woman clearly has been
guilty of marital infidelity.
Martin Stett, the Director’s assistant, attempts to get the tapes from Harry, who
refuses to give them to anyone but the man who hired him, even though Stett
assures him that they are working together. When Harry still refuses, a sexy
blonde named Meredith seduces him and he wakes up to find the tapes gone—
obviously delivered to Stett.
This turn of events is particularly upsetting to Harry, a paranoid with three
locks on his door, no listed telephone, and so protective of his privacy that he
alienates those few he allows into his life even superficially, including his girl-
friend, Amy, who doesn’t know where he lives, what he does for a living, or how
to reach him.
Usually distant, professional, and incurious, Harry becomes guilt-ridden with
this job. He is haunted by the sound of the young woman’s laugh and charmed
by her innocent-looking face. Feeling sorry for and protective of her, he is con-
vinced that she has been doomed because of the tapes he masterfully produced.
A murder is committed at the place and time anticipated in the lovers’ conver-
sation, but they are not the victims. As Harry replays the tapes in his mind at the
scene of the murder, he realizes that the young couple had not been afraid for
their own lives but had been plotting the murder of the young woman’s husband,
the Director.
Back in his apartment, Harry gets a telephone call from Stett, saying they know
that he knows and to stay uninvolved. “We’ll be listening,” he says. Frantically
tearing apart his sparse furniture and even breaking the plaster on the walls and
ripping up the floorboards, using all the expertise he’s gained in his career, Harry
is still unable to find the bugging device. He finally picks up his saxophone and
plays along to jazz records, totally alone and neurotically paralyzed into inaction
by the notion that he is being spied on.
***
While there is remarkably little action and virtually no sex or violence in a film
about those very subjects, The Conversation moves swiftly in a remarkably
243
suspenseful narrative. Produced, written, and directed by Coppola, it was his
first film after The Godfather—an enormous departure from that blockbuster in
terms of scope and size.
Robert Duvall as the Director plays an uncredited cameo.
Academy Awards nominations went to The Conversation for Best Picture and
Francis Ford Coppola for Best Director. It was named the Best Film at the Cannes
Film Festival.
BEST LINE: Late at night, Meredith, an aging but sexy model, stays at Harry’s
workshop after a small party. He is uneasy, racked with guilt about the girl he
thinks he has sent to her death, troubled by how confused and frightened she
sounds. Meredith tries to comfort him, telling him: “Forget it, Harry. It’s only a
trick. It’s a job. You’re not supposed to feel anything about it. You’re just supposed
to do it, that’s all.”
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NORTH BY NORTHWEST
1959

SCREENWRITER: Ernest Lehman
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Cary Grant .......................................................Roger Thornhill
Eva Marie Saint ......................................................Eve Kendall
James Mason ....................................................Phillip Vandamm
Leo G. Carroll .........................................................Professor
Martin Landau ..........................................................Leonard
Jessie Royce Landis ................................................Clara Thornhill
Philip Ober ......................................................Lester Townsand
Adam Williams .........................................................Valerian
Josephine Hutchinson ............................................handsome woman
DID YOU KNOW? As seems true of so many films, even the great ones, there
were ideas that seemed good, during filming that never made it onto the screen.
North by Northwest is no exception. Hitchcock had several elements that he
wanted to incorporate into a film, and he got Ernest Lehman to write most of them,
including the famous chase across Mount Rushmore and the notion of a man
being mistaken for someone who didn’t actually exist. What didn’t make it is a
scene in which a speaker at the United Nations refuses to continue his speech
until one of the delegates, head down on his desk, is awakened, only to be
discovered to have been murdered. Another scene was planned for Cary Grant to
be in an automobile factory in Detroit. As he walks through it, a car was to be built
on the assembly line just behind him. When the car rolls off the line, he opens the
door to drive it away, only to find a dead body inside. The entire sequence was
even shot, but the director and the screenwriter could never find a way to
incorporate it into the film.
245
THE STORY: An advertising executive, Roger Thornhill, is abducted from the
Plaza Hotel and brought to a mansion where he is bullied and threatened and
nearly killed as he attempts to convince his kidnappers that he is not George
Kaplan, the man they are after. The problem is that George Kaplan does not exist
at all, being a useful device for the U.S. Secret Service in their pursuit of a gang of
spies led by Phillip Vandamm, who are trying to steal government secrets.
After escaping, Thornhill tries to track down his abductor at the U.N., only the
man he is talking to is stabbed to death. His proximity to the victim makes him
appear to be guilty, and he flees to Chicago aboard the Twentieth Century Lim-
ited, where he encounters the lovely Eve Kendall, who seduces him. On the run
from both the spy ring and the police, Thornhill trusts only Eve, who turns out to
be the mistress of Vandamm, although Thornhill soon learns that she is also in
the employ of the CIA.
When Vandamm and his henchmen realize that Eve is a traitor, they plan to kill
her, chasing her and Thornhill across the huge presidential faces of Mount
Rushmore.
***
There are plot holes galore in this stylish thriller, but the action moves so
briskly and so elegantly that they are noticed only upon careful reflection. North
by Northwest (a title taken from Hamlet, incidentally) has often (and accurately)
been described as the single film that most uses all the elements known to
Hitchcock aficionados: The famous ice blonde (Eva Marie Saint), the charming
leading man (Cary Grant starred in four Hitchcock movies, as did James Stewart),
episodic action filled with almost unbearable suspense, and, of course, the
MacGuffin, the object that makes the film move forward, whether it is money,
jewelry, documents, or, in this case, government secrets. Hitchcock always main-
tained that he didn’t care what the MacGuffin was, so long as the characters
thought it was important. In North by Northwest, no mention is ever made of
what the secrets are, making them the ultimate Hitchcock MacGuffin—they are
nothing!
Hitchcock’s long-standing wish to film a chase sequence on Mount Rushmore
was finally realized in this film, but through no help of the U.S. government or the
Department of the Interior, which threw endless roadblocks in his path and drew
up strict rules about what could and could not be done at the site and even in the
246
studio. (Of course, none of the chase actually occurs on Mount Rushmore, as it
would have been far too dangerous; it was all shot in the MGM studio). As his
revenge, Hitchcock removed the credit from the film that would have thanked the
government for its cooperation.
The original working title for the film was In a Northerly Direction, which
seemed cumbersome, so Breathless was suggested and seems unusually apt,
considering the number of chases. Another suggestion was The Man in Lincoln’s
Nose, as Hitchcock planned a scene in which Grant is standing in the giant nose
of Abe Lincoln and has a sneezing spell, but it was never filmed.
Grant had wanted Sophia Loren for his leading lady, having worked with her on
two other films and being in love with her. They had nearly married, and he hoped
that working together on another film might lure her away from Carlo Ponti.
BEST LINE: As Thornhill is trying to escape the police, he tries to buy a ticket
for the Twentieth Century Limited at Grand Central Station. The ticket seller, who
has seen his picture in the paper as a wanted murderer, questions him about the
sunglasses he’s wearing. “Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes,” Thornhill
replies. “They’re sensitive to questions.”
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TOUCH OF EVIL
1958
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

PRODUCER: Albert Zugsmith
DIRECTOR: Orson Welles
SCREENWRITER: Orson Welles
SOURCE: Badge of Evil, novel by Whit Masterson
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Charlton Heston ...............................................Captain Miguel “Mike” Vargas
Janet Leigh ...............................................................Susan Vargas
Orson Welles .............................................................Hank Quinlan
Joseph Calleia .............................................................Pete Menzies
Akim Tamiroff .........................................................“Uncle” Joe Grandi
Joanna Moore ...........................................................Marcia Linneker
Victor Millan ............................................................Manolo Sanchez
Marlene Dietrich ..........................................................Madame Tana
Dennis Weaver ...............................................................hotel clerk
Ray Collins ........................................................District Attorney Adair
Zsa Zsa Gabor .........................................................owner of strip joint
DID YOU KNOW? There are uncredited cameo appearances by Mercedes

McCambridge, Joseph Cotten, and Keenan Wynn, all friends of Welles.
THE STORY: Los Robles is a small, rotting Mexican border town filled with
corruption. When a Mexican narcotics detective, Captain Miguel (“Mike”) Vargas,
drives through on his honeymoon with Susie, he witnesses a car exploding and
takes interest in the case because the car had also recently come over the Mexican
border.
It quickly becomes evident to Vargas that Hank Quinlan, the dissolute 300-
pound local Texas police captain, plans to frame a young Mexican, Sanchez, for
the crime, so he stays in the wornout hellhole to learn why. His investigations
into the long career of Quinlan reveal that he never got over the murder of his wife
248
thirty years earlier and that he has sunk to excessive drinking and eating. When
a former girlfriend, Madame Tana, sees him after some years, she says, “I didn’t
recognize you. You should lay off those candy bars.” He runs the town, doing
the dirty work for the district attorney and the police chief, both of whom fear him,
and both of whom he finds contemptible because of their corruption. When
Quinlan learns that Vargas is becoming a threat, he joins forces with “Uncle” Joe
Grandi, the town drug lord, to bring down the incorruptible Mexican cop. Grandi
terrorizes Vargas’s wife, Susie, planting drugs in her room in an attempt to portray
her as an addict, but Quinlan decides to go a step further and murders Grandi,
planning to pin the crime on the “drug-crazed” girl.
When the vicious double cross is revealed to Quinlan’s partner, Pete Menzies,
it marks the beginning of the end for the bloated cop, as his old friend betrays him
to Vargas.
***
This strange, dark, film was made as a B movie on a small budget, as a distrust-
ful studio would allow Orson Welles very little freedom with its budget. Offered
the role of Quinlan, Welles offered to write the screenplay and direct the film for
no additional money, hoping it would be the beginning of a return to a film-
making career in Hollywood. Touch of Evil was to be the last film he ever made in
Hollywood. It is possible to draw a parallel with Welles’s career and that of
Quinlan’s, both of whom were doomed by their arrogance. The last line of the
movie, then a commercial failure but now regarded as one of the great films of all
time, was spoken softly by the madame of the whorehouse in which Quinlan
spent some time. “Adios.” (Incidentally, though identified as “Tanya” in the
screenplay, Dietrich is called “Tana” in the film). Although Welles came in only a
few dollars over budget, his time in the editing room was moving along so slowly
that the studio took away his right to edit the film as he wanted to, adding some
scenes and removing others, sending Welles back to Europe (where he’d been in
self-imposed exile for several years).
In 1998, Touch of Evil was reedited according to Orson Welles’s fifty-eight-
page memo, written just after he was removed from the film, bringing it as close as
possible to his vision. One of the most famous opening shots in film history, a
three-minute twenty-second tracking shot, was shown as intended, without su-
perimposed titles and with various bits of local music instead of Henry Mancini’s
score.
249
BEST LINE: Hank Quinlan walks into a familiar sporting house and sees
Madame Tana spreading a deck of tarot cards: “Come on, read my future for me.”
Tana says, “You haven’t got any.” Quinlan, taken aback, mumbles, “Huh? Whadda
ya mean?” Tana: “Your future is all used up.”
250
THE PUBLIC ENEMY
1931

PRODUCER: Darryl F. Zanuck
DIRECTOR: William Wellman
SCREENWRITERS: Kubec Glasmon and John Bright; Harvey Thew
(adaptation)
SOURCE: “Beer and Blood,” story by John Bright
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Cagney ..............................................................Tom Powers
Jean Harlow ...............................................................Gwen Allen
Edward Woods ...............................................................Matt Doyle
Beryl Mercer ................................................................Ma Powers
Donald Cook ...............................................................Mike Powers
Joan Blondell ...................................................................Mamie
Mae Clarke ......................................................................Kitty
Leslie Fenton .......................................................Samuel “Nails” Nathan
Robert O’Connor ............................................................Paddy Ryan
Murray Kinnell ..............................................................Putty Nose
Frankie Darro ........................................................Matt Doyle as a boy
Purnell Pratt ...................................................Officer Powers, Tom’s father
DID YOU KNOW? The role of Tom Powers, which made James Cagney one of
Hollywood’s biggest stars, was originally cast with Edward Woods in the role.
After a few days of shooting, director William A. Wellman recognized the power
of Cagney, who was playing Matt Doyle, and had the two actors switch roles.
Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was opposed to the switch because he believed that
the diminutive Cagney didn’t have the strength to play the vicious psychopath.
Furthermore, Zanuck was afraid of making an enemy of Woods’s mother-in-law,
the hugely powerful Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons. However,
once Zanuck saw Cagney in the role, he relented, and the song-and-dance
251
performer would be forever associated with the toughest of tough-guy
roles.
THE STORY: Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, friends as teenagers in Chicago,
engage in petty crime and commit a robbery set up for them by their fence, Putty
Nose. Although he has promised to protect them, Putty Nose turns his back on
them when it goes wrong. As adults, the two friends run a brewery during
Prohibition for Paddy Ryan. They progress to working for the big boss, Nails
Nathan, as strong-arm men forcing speakeasies to carry only Nathan’s beer.
Tom’s ruthlessness is prized by Nathan and he gains power, but a horse riding
accident kills Nathan (Tom later shoots the horse), beginning a gang war. Ryan
tells his gang to hide out until things cool down but Tom refuses, and he and
Matt are attacked by rival gang members, who kill Matt. Tom goes berserk and
single-handedly takes on the gang, killing several of the thugs, but is wounded
himself. Taken to a hospital, he survives, only to be kidnapped and killed by the
gangsters. His dead body, swaddled in bandages, is dropped on the steps of his
mother’s house.
***
The Public Enemy was a tremendous success, breaking the box-office records
set the previous year by Little Caesar. Cagney was so well-liked by audiences
that they found themselves rooting for him against their will, even though the
movie showed him to be an amoral psychopath.
While the story of Tom Powers follows the traditional gangster movie arc of a
criminal’s life—starting out poor, being ruthless and determined enough to rise,
and ultimately being killed—it is somewhat different from Little Caesar and
Scarface in that Powers never becomes the big boss; he remains a powerful and
loyal soldier for the head of his gang.
Cagney, like George Raft, grew up in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York, so
he learned a good deal about scuffling at the edges of the law as a kid, and a fair
amount about the behavior of hoodlums as an adult.
After the success of Little Caesar, William Wellman wanted to make a
gangster movie based on the life of the Irish mobster “Deanie”
O’Bannion, but Zanuck initially turned him down, fearing that nothing
new could be made in the genre after Little Caesar. When Wellman prom-
ised him a film that would be tougher, more violent, and more realistic,
252
Zanuck relented but gave Well-man only $151,000 and twenty-six days
to make the movie.
Failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers. In this case, the notorious
scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit into the startled face of Mae Clark
(she really was startled—Cagney was supposed to fake it but actually smashed
it into her face) has been claimed to be the idea of several people. In Wellman’s
autobiography, he wrote that during an argument with his wife he fantasized
about doing it. Another source claims that mobster “Hymie” Weiss shoved an
omelette into his girlfriend’s face. Zanuck, too, claims to have conceived the
scene. Whoever was responsible managed to produce one of the most iconic
moments in the history of Hollywood and one of the most shockingly violent
acts against a woman at a time when this was uncommon behavior.
The scene in which Tom shoots the horse is based on events surrounding the
death of real-life gangster Samuel “Nails” Morton.
BEST LINE: Tom Powers, shot numerous times, stumbling toward his death,
rasps, “I ain’t so tough.”
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THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
1955
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Suspense

PRODUCER: Paul Gregory
DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton
SCREENWRITER: James Agee
SOURCE: The Night of the Hunter, novel by Davis Grubb
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Mitchum ....................................................Preacher Harry Powell
Shelley Winters ............................................................Willa Harper
Lillian Gish ..............................................................Rachel Cooper
Evelyn Varden ..............................................Icey Spoon
Peter Graves ................................................................Ben Harper
James Gleason ............................................................Birdie Steptoe
Billy Chapin ...............................................................John Harper
Don Beddoe ................................................................Walt Spoon
Sally Jane Bruce ............................................................Pearl Harper
Gloria Castilo ....................................................................Ruby
DID YOU KNOW? Although generally regarded as one of the great American
films, The Night of the Hunter was such a staggering failure at the box office that
Charles Laughton’s first directorial effort was also his last. He was never again
allowed to work behind the camera, so he resumed his position in front of it as
one of filmdom’s greatest actors. Laughton, using decidedly European stylistic
techniques, most notably German Expressionism, with one film became a
tremendous influence on some of today’s most successful directors, including
Martin Scorsese, just as Laughton in turn had been strongly influenced by Fritz
Lang and Josef von Sternberg.
THE STORY: Unable to provide for his family in the Depression-era
Midwest, Ben Harper commits a bank robbery and kills two people. Before
the police can arrest him, he hides the $10,000 he stole in his daughter
254
Pearl’s rag doll, swearing her and his son, John, to secrecy about the
hiding place.
A preacher, Harry Powell is arrested for stealing a car and is sent to prison. As
Ben’s cellmate, he overhears him talking in his sleep about the money. Ben is
executed. When Powell is released, he sets out to find Ben’s widow, Willa, and
the stolen loot. When he arrives in town, he first ingratiates himself with Icey and
Walt Spoon, proprietors of the diner and friends of Willa. He easily sweet-talks
Willa into marriage, much to the displeasure of John, who distrusts him.
On their wedding night, Willa pretties herself with a negligee, but, when she
comes to bed, he rebuffs her and preaches to her about her sinful lust. Powell
asks Willa where the money is, but she truthfully swears she doesn’t know. He
repeatedly attempts to get the children to tell him, especially impressionable little
Pearl, but John holds her to the promise they made to their father. As Powell
becomes more and more frustrated with his inability to find the stolen money, he
kills Willa and chases the children, who barely manage to escape his violent
attacks. They get to a little rowboat in the river just ahead of Powell’s grasp and
float away while he steals a horse and slowly stalks them.
After a lengthy journey, the boat drifts ashore and the children are awakened
by Rachel, who tells them to follow her home, where the kindly spinster has
already taken in other stray children. The next day, Powell shows up at Rachel’s
cottage, telling her that he is a preacher and the children’s father, but John says
he isn’t their father, and Rachel adds that he’s no preacher either. When friendly
smiles and charm fail to convince Rachel to give him the children, he angrily
demands that she turn them over, but Rachel pulls out a shotgun and shoots at
him. Screaming wildly, he takes refuge in the barn, so Rachel calls the police,
telling them that she has “something trapped in my barn.” The police arrive and
drag him out of the barn, and John suddenly feels sorry for him, grabbing the doll
from his sister’s hands and wildly battering Powell with it as the bills fly all
around. In town, a lynch mob gathers to string up the preacher, the loudest of the
mob being Icey and Walt Spoon.
***
This unrelievedly dark and suspenseful tale may have been the finest
performance of Robert Mitchum’s long career, but he grew to hate it. The
character was so unredeemably evil that it haunted Mitchum, and he grew
increasingly uncomfortable being identified with it.
255
Director Charles Laughton had believed (probably correctly) that no other
actor could so powerfully portray the psychopathic preacher who had LOVE
tattooed on one hand and HATE on the other. When Laughton called Mitchum
to play the role, he explained that he would play “a diabolical crud,” and Mitchum
replied, “Present!”
Mitchum not only played one of the most searing film roles of all time, he
helped Laughton with a task that the director despised and was unable to man-
age: the directing of the children. Laughton apparently loathed the two principal
child actors and was unable to communicate with them, while Mitchum, laid-back
as always, had fun with them and got them to do whatever was needed.
James Agee was paid $30,000 to write the screenplay and died soon after he
completed it. However, the script he turned in was more than twice as long as was
filmable, so Laughton rewrote the entire motion picture, without any screen credit.
This is attested to in the autobiography of Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s wife.
The film was made on a very modest budget, so most of it needed to be shot in
the studio. One of the most memorable images was of Preacher Powell riding his
horse on a ridge against the night sky. To make the silhouette appear to be in the
distance of a deserted country setting within the confines of a small studio,
Laughton miniaturized the horse and rider. It wasn’t Robert Mitchum riding a
horse, it was a midget riding a pony.
In spite of now being regarded as a classic of American cinema, The Night of
the Hunter was not nominated for a single Academy Award.
BEST LINE: Icey Spoon, Willa Harper’s busybody neighbor, talking to a group
of women about Ben Harper’s death and the sense of loss felt by his widow and
their obviously earthy relationship: “She’s mooning about Ben Harper. That
wasn’t love. That was just flapdoodle. . . . When you’ve been married to a man
forty years, you know all that don’t amount to a hill of beans. I’ve been married to
my Walt that long, and I swear in all that time I just lied there thinking about my
canning.”
256
SUNSET BOULEVARD
1950
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Charles Brackett
SCREENWRITERS: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M.
Marshman, Jr.
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
William Holden ...............................................................Joe Gillis
Gloria Swanson .........................................................Norma Desmond
Erich von Stroheim ....................................................Max Von Mayerling
Nancy Olson .............................................................Betty Schaefer
Fred Clark ...................................................................Sheldrake
Jack Webb .................................................................Artie Green
Lloyd Gough ...................................................................Morino
Franklin Farnum .............................................................undertaker
DID YOU KNOW? Sunset Boulevard opened the door to a large number of
dark films about Tinseltown itself. There was a rash of mea culpas in Hollywood
in the early and mid fifties with the release of In a Lonely Place, The Big Knife, A
Star Is Born, The Bad and the Beautiful, and The Barefoot Contessa, the best
known of the exposés of Hollywood. Never before had an industry worked so
hard to show itself in the worst possible light. Perhaps the attempts at self-
immolation were a result of the investigations of the House Un-American Activities
Committee; perhaps it was the breakup of the studio system that kept actors and
writers under long-term contracts; perhaps it was the government-forced
divestment of studio-owned theaters; or perhaps it was the rise of television’s
popularity; but whatever the reason, the bright lights and glamour of Hollywood
would never again be as appealing to mass audiences.
THE STORY: Out-of-work screenwriter Joe Gillis, broke and on the run from
257
repo men who want to take his car for nonpayment, pulls into the driveway of a
huge but desiccated mansion owned by former silent-screen star Norma Desmond.
He is brought to Desmond by the butler, Max Von Mayerling, who also happens
to be her former husband. After a brief conversation, she hires him to write the
screenplay that will be her vehicle back to the top of Hollywood stardom. She
insists that he move into her house, where he falls uncomfortably into the role of
gigolo. He tries to get away from her possessive clutches, but when a New Year’s
Eve party she has thrown just for him goes awry, she tries to kill herself, bringing
him back. While working on her comeback movie, Gillis meets another young
screenwriter, Betty Schaefer, and, inspired again, begins a new screenplay that he
believes will be his best work to date. They fall in love and Desmond becomes
enraged with jealousy. She calls Betty to tell her that Gillis lives off her, in the
clothes she buys for him, in her house. When Betty comes to the old mansion to
see for herself, Gillis cruelly admits exactly what he is, sending her off to the man
she used to love. He then packs to leave, and Desmond breaks down and shoots
him. As his corpse is pulled out of the swimming pool, the police and media
swarm over the estate. As news cameras roll, Desmond, believing them to be
movie cameras, regally descends her staircase and, chin held high, announces,
“All right, Mr. DeMille. I’m ready for my closeup.”
***
Famously, the film opens with the star, William Holden, floating dead in the
swimming pool. With voice-over narration, the entire story unfolds in flashback.
Film historians have often described the great era of noir films as being brack-
eted by two of Billy Wilder’s motion pictures, starting with Double Indemnity
(1944) and concluding with Sunset Boulevard six years later. There are excep-
tions, of course, notably Touch of Evil (1958), but the time in which every studio
had two or three dark crime dramas a year in production had largely ended with
this Gothic masterpiece.
The grand old mansion in which most of the film was shot belonged to the
Getty family, and Wilder thought it would be perfect as a location. Unfortunately,
it did not have a swimming pool—clearly a necessity—so the studio built one for
the movie and removed it after the film was completed.
Academy Award nominations went to the film for Best Picture, to Wilder for
Best Director, to Holden for Best Actor, to Swanson for Best Actress, to Von
258
Stroheim for Best Supporting Actor, and to Olson for Best Supporting Actress.
All lost. Altogether, the film had eleven nominations and won three, including
Best Story and Screenplay to Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman,
Jr.
Billy Wilder initially had offered the role of Norma Desmond to Mae West, who
turned it down. He then considered Mary Pickford but decided she would be
wrong after all. He then offered it to Pola Negri, who also turned it down. He
finally settled on Swanson, who got an Oscar nomination.
Cecil B. DeMille played himself, and there were cameos by Hedda Hopper,
Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H. B. Warner, Ray Evans, and Jay Livingston, all
of whom played themselves.
BEST LINE: Screenwriter Joe Gillis recognizes the silent-film star: “You’re
Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.” “I am still
big,” she replies. “It’s the pictures that got small.”
259
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?
1988

STUDIO: Touchstone-Amblin Silver Screen
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen
Kennedy
PRODUCERS: Robert Watts and Frank Marshall
DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis
SCREENWRITERS: Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman
SOURCE: Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, novel
by Gary K. Wolf
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Bob Hoskins ...............................................................Eddie Valiant
Christopher Lloyd ...........................................................Judge Doom
Joanna Cassidy .................................................................Dolores
Stubby Kaye ..............................................................Marvin Acme
Alan Tilvern ..............................................................R. K. Maroon
Charles Fleischer.......Voices of Roger Rabbit, Benny the Cab, and
others
Lou Hirsch ........................................................Voice of Baby Herman
Mel Blanc .......................................Voices of Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, and others
DID YOU KNOW? Actor Bob Hoskins managed perhaps the most difficult
achievement of his applaudable career by acting and interacting with empty
space. As most of those playing opposite him are cartoon characters who were
drawn into the frames after the live acting was completed, Hoskins had to pretend
that he was speaking to someone, fighting with someone, engaged in a tug-of-
war, etc., while in fact he was going it solo. To help prepare for the part, he
watched his young daughter so that he could learn to act with imaginary
characters. His son, meanwhile, was angry with him for failing to bring his cartoon
costars home with him so that they could be introduced to, and play with, the
young boy. Hoskins later had problems with frequent and believable hallucinations.
260
THE STORY: In 1947 Los Angeles, Roger Rabbit is a “Toon,” a derogatory
term for the characters who can perform many extraordinary things and suffer
great violence without suffering serious injury but are despised by humans for
their free-spirited, fun-loving ways. They are permitted to work in Hollywood
with humans but then must return to Toontown, segregated from the rest of
society.
When Roger seems to lack focus in his films, the owner of Maroon Cartoons
guesses that he must be having marital problems, so he hires Eddie Valiant, a two-
bit private detective, to check up on Roger’s sexy wife, Jessica Rabbit. Valiant
hates Toons, whom he believes murdered his brother, a cop, by dropping a safe
on his head.
Valiant spots Jessica backstage at the nightclub where she sings, playing
patty-cake (literally) with Marvin Acme, a prop supplier, and provides photo-
graphs to Roger. The next day, Acme is found murdered, a safe having been
dropped on his head, and Roger is suspected.
Acme’s death is a severe blow to the Toons because he owned the land on
which Toontown was built and he had always acted kindly toward them. Roger
swears he is innocent and hires the reluctant Valiant to find evidence that will
clear him.
Judge Doom, a Toon-hating human, is eager to catch Roger and kill him with
his invention, “The Dip,” which is the only certain way to kill a Toon—it erases
them. Doom wants Roger out of the way because he has a plan to use the land for
an off-ramp for a massive highway network that will replace the clean, efficient,
and inexpensive trolley system currently in use.
Valiant traces the murder to Judge Doom, and a battle between the detective
and the villain ensues, with the lives of Roger and Jessica, and all of Toontown,
at stake. A giant steamroller, brought to Toontown to spray “The Dip” all over it
and wipe out everyone and everything, runs over Judge Doom during the battle.
When he immediately pops up, alive and unhurt, he reveals that he is a Toon
himself, finally melting and being erased by his own mixture of death, saving the
Rabbits, who love each other, and Toontown and its residents.
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***
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, in addition to being one of the most entertaining
films of modern times, is also one of the most innovative. It combines human and
animation figures so realistically that audiences suspend disbelief after a few
scenes and are as concerned with Toon characters as they would be with human
actors.
This was not the first time that animation was mixed with real-life actors, with
Disney having done it in Song of the South (1946) and again in Mary Poppins
(1964), and Warner Brothers doing it briefly in a 1940 cartoon by Fritz Freleng,
You Ought to Be in Pictures, in which Porky Pig and Daffy Duck demand better
treatment from the real-life animation-department head Leon Schlesinger.
Although it was not the first, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? displays by far the
most accomplished and ambitious use of this difficult technique, making the
interaction between cartoon and real-life characters utterly convincing. The near-
miraculous achievement of Steven Spielberg’s Industrial Light and Magic Com-
pany, the director of animation, Richard Williams, and literally hundreds of anima-
tors cannot be praised too highly.
Perhaps equally miraculous is that all the major film studios co-operated in the
production, an unheard of agreement in the highly competitive and protective
world of Hollywood, where copyrights and trademarks are the fountain from
which countless dollars flow. Disney permitted the use of Mickey Mouse and
Donald Duck, Warner Brothers allowed Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck to appear,
Paramount gave permission for Betty Boop, Universal agreed to let Woody Wood-
pecker make an appearance, and virtually every other well-known cartoon char-
acter has at least a cameo role.
Kathleen Turner supplied the speaking voice of the sexy Jessica Rabbit but
was uncredited; Amy Irving supplied her singing voice.
BEST LINE: Jessica Rabbit, who looks like an incredibly sexy human, is
uncomfortable with her voluptuous figure, and tells Eddie Valiant, “You don’t
know what it’s like being a woman looking the way I do.” Valiant replies, “You
don’t know what it’s like being a man looking at a woman looking the way you
do.” Later, Jessica says, “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
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DOUBLE INDEMNITY
1944
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Joseph Sistrom
SCREENWRITERS: Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler
SOURCE: Double Indemnity, novella by James M. Cain
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Barbara Stanwyck ......................................................Phyllis Dietrichson
Fred MacMurray .............................................................Walter Neff
Edward G. Robinson .........................................................Barton Keyes
Porter Hall .................................................................Mr. Jackson
Jean Heather ...........................................................Lola Dietrichson
Tom Powers .............................................................Mr. Dietrichson
Byron Barr ...............................................................Nino Zachette
Richard Gaines ..............................................................Mr. Norton
DID YOU KNOW? Billy Wilder, the director, cowriter, and driving force in
bringing James M. Cain’s novella to the screen, had a terrible time getting people
to work with him on it. His usual collaborator on screenplays, Charles Brackett,
reportedly found the story so repugnant that he refused to have anything to do
with it. Barbara Stanwyck agreed to star because she wanted to broaden her
image from the usual “good girl” roles she’d had, but virtually every male lead
walked away from the project, including George Raft, who made a career of walking
away from one great film after another (The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, to
name two, had both been offered to him). Finally, Fred MacMurray, who had
previously played lighthearted song-and-dance men, went against type and took
the role that made him a star.
THE STORY: Insurance salesman Walter Neff calls on a policyholder, Mr.
Dietrichson, to sell him a life-insurance policy, only to run into his sexy young
wife. He is instantly drawn to her, and they engage in sexual double entendre
263
conversation that makes it clear they are attracted to each other. Phyllis Dietrichson
convinces Neff that they could be married if Dietrichson had a fatal accident,
which would pay her double the $50,000 indemnity on the insurance policy. After
they plot to murder her husband, Neff conceives the plan that will make the crime
look like an accident and then carries it out. Barton Keyes, an investigator at
Neff’s insurance company, is assigned to look into the case and becomes
convinced that Dietrichson was murdered. As Keyes moves closer and closer to
a solution, Neff realizes that Phyllis has used him only to get the money, and he
plans to kill her. When the confrontation between the two takes place, she beats
him to the punch and shoots him once but, realizing that she truly does love him,
she can’t finish him off. Neff then shoots her twice, killing her. Having confessed
the entire story to Keyes on a recording, Neff dies of his wounds.
***
This hugely important film not only defined the noir genre, it was a milestone
for Hollywood motion pictures in general. For the first time, audiences saw a
murder planned and carried out as the two protagonists risked everything for
greed and lust. The whopping sum of $25,000 had been paid to Cain for the
novella, which had run in Liberty magazine, even though the Production Code
Administration, Hollywood’s censoring body, had warned that it would never
get on the screen.
Wilder brought in Raymond Chandler, who had never before written a screen-
play, to turn the amoral Cain story into a screenplay. Changing the overt sex into
innuendo turned the trick and it was filmed.
Wilder and Chandler took an instant dislike to each other while working on the
film. Chandler was quiet and dignified, reticent and shy, and married to a woman
twenty years older than he (he was fifty-five at the time). Wilder was loud, arro-
gant, uncouth, and dated several beautiful young women at the same time. But
Chandler learned from Wilder how to write a screenplay (getting two Oscar nomi-
nations within four years), and Wilder recognized the extraordinary talent of an
author whose work mainly had been published in pulp magazines.
Oscar nominations went to the film for Best Picture, Billy Wilder for Best Direc-
tor, Barbara Stanwyck for Best Actress, and Raymond Chandler for Best Screen-
play. All lost.
The original ending had Neff going to the gas chamber and showed
264
his execution in full detail. Wilder decided this scene was unneces-
sary.
A television version of Double Indemnity was produced in 1973, adapted by
Steven Bochco and starring Samantha Eggar, Richard Crenna, and Lee J. Cobb.
BEST LINE: Neff has just met the sexy and scantily clad wife of the man to
whom he’s selling a large life insurance policy. The man’s not in, so she suggests
that he return to speak to her husband. “Mr. Neff, why don’t you drop by tomorrow
evening around eight-thirty. He’ll be in then.” “Who?” Neff asks. “My husband,”
she replies. “You were anxious to talk to him, weren’t you?” “Yeah, I was,” Neff
responds, “but I’m sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.”
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THE STING
1973
TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Comedy

STUDIO: Universal
PRODUCERS: Tony Bill, Michael and Julia Phillips
DIRECTOR: George Roy Hill
SCREENWRITER: David S. Ward
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Paul Newman ...........................................................Henry Gondorff
Robert Redford ...........................................................Johnny Hooker
Robert Shaw ............................................................Doyle Lonnegan
Charles Durning .......................................................Lt. William Snyder
Ray Walston ..............................................................J. J. Singleton
Eileen Brennan ..................................................................Billie
John Heffernan .............................................................Eddie Niles
Harold Gould .................................................................Kid Twist
Dana Elcar .............................................................F.B.I. Agent Polk
Robert Earl James ........................................................Luther Coleman
DID YOU KNOW? When The Sting was first planned, Paul Newman was not
scheduled to have any part in it. Robert Redford had teamed with Paul Newman
four years earlier in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and their charisma,
combined with director George Roy Hill’s skill as a story-teller, had made the film
one of the biggest box-office smashes of 1969. Redford was winding up his work
on The Way We Were and preparing to star in The Great Waldo Pepper when he
read the script for The Sting, an original screenplay by David S. Ward, who was
set to direct it as well. Redford saw the great possibilities of the old-fashioned
comic caper film as a vehicle for himself but was reluctant to trust a first-time
director and talked with Hill about it. When the studio decided to use Hill as the
director, Redford committed to it, and when Newman heard of it, he was not
pleased with Hill, believing there should be a part for him so that the successful
266
trio could be reunited. Hill reconsidered the part of Henry Gondorff, which had
been dramatically smaller and portrayed the con man as a crude slob. There was
a fair amount of rewriting to accommodate the two stars, who received a healthy
(in 1973) half million dollars each; Newman also got a share of the gross, and The
Sting became an enormous box-office hit.
THE STORY: In 1936, in Joliet, Illinois, Johnny Hooker and his partner, Luther
Coleman, swindle a gangster courier out of a large cash delivery, so his boss,
Doyle Lonnegan, orders them killed. Corrupt police lieutenant William Snyder
learns of Hooker’s haul and shakes him down for half the take, most of which
Hooker has already lost in a gambling den. He, too, threatens to kill Hooker if he
doesn’t come up with more money. Coleman, ready to retire after his big score, is
killed by Lonnegan’s men, and Hooker promises to avenge his friend’s murder by
swindling the big-time gangster out of a fortune.
Hooker goes to Chicago to team up with Harry Gondorff, described as “the
greatest con artist of them all,” and they agree to do a “big con” on Lonnegan.
They set up a classy but bogus gambling parlor and are offered the assistance of
any con men they need, as all are eager to get revenge on the swaggering
Lonnegan.
The con begins with Newman outcheating Lonnegan in a big poker game and
Hooker telling their mark all about it, acting as the ambitious right-hand man who
wants to take over his employer’s rackets. He explains to Lonnegan that he has a
system for beating Gondorff by “past-posting” him on horse races—i.e., placing
bets after the results are already known to him but not to the betting parlor. After
several tests and payoffs, Lonnegan trusts the system and Hooker.
Meanwhile, the FBI has entered the case, and Snyder is told to bring Hooker in,
where he is forced to turn on Gondorff by informing agent Polk about the time
and location of the “sting” that is to be perpetrated. When the moment arrives,
Lonnegan hands over a suitcase with $500,000 to bet on a horse. As the result
comes in, so does the FBI, and Gondorff recognizes that he has been betrayed by
Hooker and shoots him, whereupon Polk shoots Gondorff. Lt. Synder hustles
Lonnegan out of the betting parlor to protect him from involvement, leaving the
suitcase full of cash behind. When the crook and the cop are out of sight of the
gambling joint, Hooker and Gondorff get up from their faked deaths and every-
one, including the phony FBI agent, celebrates the successful sting.
267
***
The fast-moving action, razzle-dazzle sets and costumes, great cast of charac-
ter actors, best pairing of stars since Hepburn and Tracy, and a brilliant twisting
plot combine to make this one of the most satisfying and watchable films ever
made. The nostalgia oozes from sets that are a little too perfect and clean, cos-
tumes that are simply too original and enchanting, an unbelievable Redford as a
two-bit lowlife, and the entire criminal element, which is a little too Runyanesque
to be taken seriously. Realism is not what this picture is about, and if you seek it
in this film, you were born without a sense of humor or the ability to enjoy magic.
Marvin Hamlisch adapted the ragtime music of Scott Joplin so wonderfully
that he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Score and helped the nation rediscover
the joys of old-time ragtime. In the same year, he won the Oscar for Best Original
Dramatic Score for The Way We Were.
When Henry Gondorff, played by Paul Newman, is introduced to Doyle
Lonnegan played by Robert Shaw, Gondorff is introduced as “Mr. Shaw.”
The Sting was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning seven, including
Best Picture, Best Director (George Roy Hill), and Best Original Screenplay (David
S. Ward).
At the Academy Awards ceremony, the big moment is always the presentation
of the Oscar for Best Picture, which was to be presented by Elizabeth Taylor. As
David Niven was introducing her, a genius by the name of Robert Opal streaked
in front of the live audience and untold millions around the world. Comic singer
and songwriter Ray Stevens was inspired to write “The Streak,” which became
the number-one record in America. Six years later, Opal was found murdered in his
sex shop in San Francisco.
As good as The Sting is, it couldn’t sustain a sequel. The Sting II (1983),
incredibly also written by David S. Ward, who should have quit while he was
ahead, starred Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis in the roles created by Newman and
Redford, hard as that might be to comprehend.
BEST LINE: Johnny Hooker sees Doyle Lonnegan for the first time and says,
“He’s not as tough as he thinks.” Henry Gondorff replies, “Neither are we.”
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PSYCHO
1960

STUDIO: Paramount
SCREENWRITER: Joseph Stefano
SOURCE: Psycho, novel by Robert Bloch
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Anthony Perkins ..........................................................Norman Bates
Janet Leigh ...............................................................Marion Crane
Vera Miles ..................................................................Lila Crane
John Gavin ................................................................Sam Loomis
Martin Balsam ................................................................Arbogast
John McIntire .............................................................Al Chambers
Simon Oakland ..............................................................psychiatrist
John Anderson ........................................................“California Charlie”
Lurene Tuttle ............................................................Mrs. Chambers
Frank Albertson ................................................................Cassidy
Pat Hitchcock .................................................................Caroline
DID YOU KNOW? Perhaps the most famous scene in cinematic history, the
violent shower murder—which has been analyzed, written about, imitated,
parodied, and remained in viewers’ memories four decades after it was made—
barely involved the film’s principals. Janet Leigh, whose naked body is attacked
by the killer’s huge knife, was actually used only for her hands and face, the rest
of her body being replaced by a nude model. Anthony Perkins, the psychopathic
schizophrenic, was in New York, preparing for a play, and another actor was
dressed up in his costume and makeup. Even the director, Alfred Hitchcock, had
turned over the meticulous laying out of the scene, virtually frame by frame, to
Saul Bass, the art director who designed the titles (as he also did for Vertigo and
North by Northwest). Hitchcock himself added only two shots: the knife actually
269
entering the abdomen, and the blood mixing with the water as it is washed
down the drain. Apart from that, the storyboard created by Bass was followed
precisely.
THE STORY: Marion Crane meets her lover, recently divorced Sam Loomis,
in a hotel room for a liaison on her lunch hour. Wanting to be married to Sam,
who is unable to afford it, she steals $40,000 from her real estate firm when her
employer asks her to deposit the cash, taking off in her car instead. That night,
she stops at a run-down motel and chats with Norman Bates, the friendly owner,
who tells her that he lives in the nearby house with his aged and apparently
demanding mother.
As Marion undresses for a shower, Bates watches her through a small hole in
the wall. While in the shower, she suddenly sees a shadow and is viciously
attacked and killed by an old woman wielding a huge knife. Bates, apparently
irritated at his mother for the violent act, nonetheless cleans up the bathroom,
puts Marion in the trunk of her car, and sinks it in a nearby swamp.
Sam, aided by Marion’s sister, Lila, sets out to find the missing girl, as does
an insurance detective, Arbogast, who is intent on retrieving the stolen money.
The detective traces Marion to the Bates Motel and becomes suspicious when
Bates is caught in lies and refuses to let him see his mother. He telephones Lila
and Sam to inform them of his progress and sneaks back to the house to try to
question the old woman. Just as he reaches the top of the stairs, he is attacked
by the knife-wielding old woman, his already dead body toppling back down
the stairs.
Lila and Sam talk to the local sheriff and learn that, in fact, Bates’s mother has
been dead for ten years. They go to the house, and Lila is attacked but escapes
serious harm. In the fight that ensues, it is revealed that Norman is a schizo-
phrenic, a friendly young man who becomes a violent maniac when he takes on
his mother’s personality.
***
Psycho was a tremendously influential film that, for all its brilliance, caused a
terrible decline in horror and suspense films as less-talented writers and direc-
tors now felt free to show more and more graphic screen violence. Slasher films,
270
unknown until then, have since become a staple of summer cinema, and the
entire notion of subtlety appears to have died with Hitchcock.
Of all the successes enjoyed by Hitchcock, this was by far the most finan-
cially rewarding. Made for a preposterously little $800,000, it earned Hitchcock
a check for $2,000,000 within six months of its release and an additional
$20,000,000 before his death.
It was cheaply made for several reasons—mainly because the actors were paid
very modestly. Perkins, who had top billing, owed Paramount a picture and so
had little negotiating position. In addition, he was eager to work with Hitchcock,
as was Janet Leigh. Gavin and Miles were contract players who were being paid
weekly salaries anyway. Already very active in his weekly television series,
Hitchcock decided to save even more money by using his own TV studio and
crew.
Years later, MCA became a huge conglomerate, as well as the parent company
of Universal Pictures. Hitchcock left Paramount to go to Universal, where he
exchanged his rights to Psycho and to his television programs in exchange for
MCA stock, becoming its third-largest shareholder.
Oscar nominations went to Hitchcock for Best Director and Janet Leigh for
Best Supporting Actress. An Edgar Allan Poe Award was given by the Mystery
Writers of America to Joseph Stefano for his screenplay, and the organization
also presented a special scroll to Robert Bloch, author of the novel that was
followed closely for the film version. Anthony Perkins, in one of the most memo-
rable screen performances of all time, was passed over.
Hitchcock Alert: That’s the director standing on the sidewalk, wearing a large
Texas hat.
BEST LINE: A rich braggart in her real estate office tells Marion that he is
buying his daughter a house as a wedding present. “Forty thousand dollars,” he
asserts, “all cash.” Caroline, the girl at the next desk, gasps, “I declare!” “I don’t,”
the boor says. “That’s how I get to keep it.”
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THE FRENCH CONNECTION
1971

PRODUCER: Philip D’Antoni
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
SCREENWRITER: Ernest Tidyman
SOURCE: The French Connection, book by Robin
Moore
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gene Hackman .....................................................Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle
Fernando Rey ............................................................Alain Charnier
Roy Scheider ...............................................................Buddy Russo
Tony LoBianco .................................................................Sal Boca
Marcel Bozzuffi .............................................................Pierre Nicoli
Frederic De Pasquale ..........................................................Devereaux
Bill Hickman .................................................................Mulderig
Ann Rebbot ..............................................................Marie Charnier
Eddie Egan .............................................................Walter Simonson
Sonny Grosso ....................................................................Klein
DID YOU KNOW? Because of his involvement with The French Connection,
Eddie Egan, the real-life New York Police Department detective on whom Jimmy
“Popeye” Doyle was based, was fired from his job only seven hours before his
retirement papers were due to be signed.
Egan, one of the top cops of the NYPD, had, with his partner Sonny Grosso
(the inspiration for Buddy Russo), cracked one of the biggest drug cases in New
York City history, nabbing heroin worth $32,000,000 on the street. This case
formed the basis for Robin Moore’s book, subsequently made into The French
Connection.
Hired to work on the film as a consultant along with a small role (as Walter
Simonson), Egan was pleased with Gene Hackman’s portrayal of him and was
272
proud of the film. The NYPD, however, was not at all pleased to see its cops
portrayed as vicious thugs who beat up suspects as brutally as criminals did.
The image of rogue cops, ignoring the rules of the job as well as repeatedly
breaking the laws they were sworn to uphold, enraged the department. Egan
went on to do other film and television work, including small acting roles and
consulting jobs, notably on Prime Cut (1972), which starred Lee Marvin and
Gene Hackman; The Seven-Ups (1973), with Roy Scheider and Tony LoBianco;
and Report to the Commissioner (1975), with Michael Moriarty.
THE STORY: Doyle and Russo spot a group of drug-involved crooks at a bar,
and Doyle talks Russo into following the one they don’t know, Sal Boca, “just for
fun.” They soon learn that they have stumbled onto one of the biggest drug
deals ever to go down in New York, as 120 pounds of heroin are being smuggled
into the United States from France in an automobile belonging to a French TV
actor, Devereaux, who has no idea that he is smuggling drugs.
A major surveillance effort ensues, with the FBI being called in to work with the
NYPD, and the principal suspects are followed. However, Alain Charnier (referred
to by Doyle as “Frog One”) spots Doyle’s tail and loses him in the subway. With
Doyle clearly their major problem, Charnier’s associate, Pierre Nicoli, tries to
shoot Doyle, accidentally killing a woman passing by. Doyle chases him to a
rooftop and then to an elevated train, which Nicoli commandeers as the cop
pursues him by car. When the train races out of control and crashes, Nicoli leaps
out and Doyle shoots him.
The police realize that the drugs have been hidden in Devereaux’s car, but they
find it clean when they search. Doyle refuses to let the car go, knowing that the
drugs must be there, and the car is virtually disassembled before they find the
bags of powder in the rockers. The car is put back together and returned with
apologies to the actor, who has been told that the car was stolen and recovered,
and the police follow as he drives it to some ramshackle buildings on Ward’s
Island in New York’s East River.
Just as the drug deal is about to be transacted, the police and FBI men,
having surrounded the buildings, order the culprits to surrender, but the gang-
sters open fire and a full-scale gun battle ensues, during which Doyle acciden-
tally shoots an FBI agent. When the roundup is concluded, Charnier has es-
caped, the remaining criminals are given relatively light sentences, and Doyle
273
and Russo, because of their flouting of police-department rules, are transferred
as punishment.
***
Director William Friedkin was only thirty-two years old when he made The
French Connection. The chase scene, in which Popeye is in a car and his quarry
is in an elevated train, is without question the most exciting chase scene in movie
history. It has been emulated often, of course, but never bested.
Gene Hackman had been Friedkin’s seventh choice to play “Popeye” Doyle.
His first choice had been Steve McQueen, followed by a string of others, includ-
ing Jackie Gleason and even columnist Jimmy Breslin. It was Hackman’s first
starring role, though he had made a good splash in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), for
which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He had been eager to take the
role. “When I first read the part,” he has been quoted as saying, “it seemed like a
chance to do all those things I watched Jimmy Cagney do as a kid.”
Although not as good as the original, the sequel, French Connection II, made
four years later, is also a first-rate drama, with Gene Hackman turning in another
outstanding performance as “Popeye” Doyle and the elusive Alain Charnier again
being well played by Fernando Rey. A much less successful effort was Popeye
Doyle, a 1986 television movie.
Eight Academy Award nominations went to The French Connection. The film
won for: Best Picture, Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Actor (Gene Hack-
man), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman), and Best Editing (Jerry
Greenberg). Tidyman also won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery
Writers of America for his screenplay, and Hackman was named Best Actor by the
New York Film Critics. Friedkin also received the Best Director award from the
Directors Guild. In recognition of the memorable chase scene as well as the
superb moment when “Frog One” escapes Doyle’s tail on the subway, Jerry
Greenberg, thanked the New York City subway system when he picked up his
Oscar for Editing.
BEST LINE: Doyle and Russo have just caught a junkie and are trying to get
him to talk. Russo asks him to name his supplier, without much luck, when the
apparently insane Doyle asks him: “When’s the last time you picked your feet?
274
Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie? You’ve been there, right? . . . You’ve sat
on the edge of the bed, didn’t you? You took off your shoes and put your fingers
between your toes and picked your feet, didn’t you? . . . I’m gonna nail you for
picking your feet in Poughkeepsie.” Don’t worry if you don’t get it. No one does.
275
WHITE HEAT
1949

PRODUCER: Louis F. Edelman
DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh
SCREENWRITERS: Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts
SOURCE: Original story by Virginia Kellogg
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
James Cagney ........................................................Arthur Cody Jarrett
Virginia Mayo .............................................................Verna Jarrett
Edmond O’Brien ....................................................Hank Fallon/Vic Pardo
Margaret Wycherly ............................................................Ma Jarrett
Steve Cochran ............................................................Big Ed Somers
John Archer ...............................................................Philip Evans
DID YOU KNOW? In one of the most famous scenes in cinema history, Cody
Jarrett, the gangster played by James Cagney, is in the prison mess hall when he
learns that his mother, on whom he has a pathological fixation, is dead. He goes
berserk, screaming and whimpering as he walks and crawls across the crowded
tables, slugging prison guards in a nearly balletic sequence. While a young boy,
Cagney had visited the famous mental institution on Ward’s Island in New York’s
East River. The pathetic screams of the insane stayed in his memory, and he
replicated them in this scene. Although the scene required the use of hundreds of
extras, with numerous camera angles, it was shot in a single morning.
THE STORY: After a robbery of a mail train nets $300,000, Cody Jarrett and his
gang, including his wife, Verna, and his mother, hide out in an isolated cabin. Big
Ed Somers, One of the gang members, thinks Cody is crazy and hates the idea of
having all that money while freezing in the middle of nowhere. Under stress,
Cody has one of his more and more frequent headaches, which he describes as
“like having a red-hot buzz saw inside my head.” As he recovers, his ma hands
him a drink and tells him, “Top of the world, son.”
276
One of the gang members, badly burned during the robbery, is left behind
when the gang changes hideouts, and fingerprints discovered by the Treasury
Department point to the Jarrett gang as the robbers. When the T-men close in,
Jarrett turns himself in for a minor robbery committed at the same time as the train
heist, which left four dead, and he is sentenced to one-to-three years in prison.
The Feds facilitate this so they can have one of their own, Hank Fallon, pose as
convict Vic Pardo to share a cell with Cody and thereby learn the identity of the
man who fences the stolen money.
Cody’s mother visits him in jail to tell him that Big Ed and Verna have taken off
together but that her son will soon be out and “on top of the world.” Cody tells
her he’ll take care of Ed when he gets out, but his mother doesn’t want Ed to live
that long; she says she’ll take care of him.
Cody later learns that his mother is dead and goes insane in the prison mess
hall. Soon after he escapes with Pardo. He finds Big Ed and Verna and, with his
wife’s connivance, kills the dismal Ed. The gang then plans a big robbery at a gas
plant, using a large tanker to sneak in. The police and T-men surround the plant,
and the gang is wiped out. Cody, laughing hysterically, climbs to the top of one
of the gas tanks, where marksman Fallon shoots him several times, finally firing
into the gas tank. As it explodes, Cody looks skyward and yells, “Made it, Ma.
Top of the world.” On the ground, Fallon says, “Cody Jarrett. Finally made it to
the top of the world, and it blew right up in his face.”
***
Raoul Walsh had worked with Cagney before (The Roaring Twenties, 1939)
and understood good action sequences (he himself had ridden with Pancho Villa
while a young man). But he also trusted Cagney to bring something more to the
motion picture than action and allowed the actor to make suggestions about
Cody Jarrett’s relationship with his mother. It was Cagney who suggested that
Jarrett be comforted in her lap after one of his headaches—one of the most
memorable scenes in any gangster movie.
Cody Jarrett was one of Cagney’s greatest screen roles in a career with many.
The film may have produced the two scenes for which he is most remembered:
going crazy when he learns of his mother’s death and his roaring demise atop the
gas tank as he screams, “Top of the world.” His career had been suffering since
the megahit, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), in which he played song-and-dance
277
man George M. Cohan. The subject of the deranged outlaw seemed a sure hit,
and it was, but Cagney came to hate it, frustrated that he would be most remem-
bered for his role as an insane, Oedipal loser.
BEST LINE: Cody’s wife, Verna, trying to convince him to keep all of the
gang’s money and spend it on her: “I’d look good in a mink coat, honey,” she
says. Cody replies, “Mm. You’d look good in a shower curtain.”
278
OUT OF THE PAST
1947
TYPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: RKO
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Sparks
PRODUCER: Warren Duff
DIRECTOR: Jacques Tourneur
SCREENWRITER: Geoffrey Homes (pseudonym
of Daniel Mainwaring)
SOURCE: Build My Gallows High, novel by
Geoffrey Homes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Mitchum .....................................................Jeff Markham/Bailey
Jane Greer ...............................................................Kathie Moffett
Kirk Douglas ..............................................................Whit Sterling
Rhonda Fleming ............................................................Meta Carson
Richard Webb .....................................................................Jim
Steve Brodie .........................................................Jack Fisher
Virginia Huston ...................................................................Ann
Paul Valentine ..............................................................Joe Stefanos
Dickie Moore .............................................................deaf-mute boy
Ken Niles .........................................................................Els
DID YOU KNOW? Robert Mitchum became RKO’s biggest male star with his
role as the laconic private eye in Out of the Past, but he almost didn’t get the part.
It had been offered to Humphrey Bogart, the actor who Daniel Mainwaring, the
screenwriter, had in mind while adapting his book for the screen. But Bogart, who
was enthusiastic about the film, was under contract to Warner Brothers, who
wouldn’t agree to loan him out to RKO. The role was next offered to John Garfield,
who turned it down, as did Dick Powell, whose career was on the rise after he
switched from singing and dancing to becoming a tough guy in Murder, My
Sweet (1944). Mitchum, under contract to RKO, had played only supporting
279
roles, notably in The Story of G.I Joe, for which he received an Academy Award
nomination, and another noir classic, Crossfire (1947), but this, his first starring
role, catapulted him to stardom.
THE STORY: Private detective Jeff Markham is hired by gangster Whit Sterling
to find his girlfriend, Kathie Moffett, who has fled, taking $40,000 of his money
with her. Jeff tracks her down in Mexico and falls for her. While he sends telegrams
to Whit informing him that he can’t find her, he and Kathie begin a torrid affair
and he believes her when she swears she didn’t steal the money. They leave for
San Francisco to begin a new life, but they have the bad luck to be spotted at a
racetrack by his former partner in the detective agency, now hunting him and
Kathie for Whit.
They try to shake Fisher, the detective, but he follows Kathie to a mountain
cabin and attempts to blackmail them for a cut of the $40,000. Kathie icily and
needlessly shoots him, fleeing to leave the corpse and the blame on her lover.
Jeff moves to a small town and opens a gas station under the assumed name of
Bailey and gets engaged to a schoolteacher, Ann. One of Whit’s henchmen finds
him and summons him to meet the boss. As Ann drives him to the meeting, he
tells her the sordid tale of his past and vows to put it all behind him and come
back to her.
When he arrives at Whit’s place, Kathie is there and Whit gives Jeff the chance
to make up for his double dealing. Steal some tax records from Whit’s former
accountant, who has threatened to go to the Feds, and they’ll be square, Whit
assures him. Jeff senses a double cross and learns that Kathie has signed an
affidavit pinning the murder of Fisher on him. He steals the tax papers, finding the
accountant dead as he is set up for the murder, but he gets away and offers to
trade the incriminating documents for the affidavit. When Jeff shows up for the
switch, he finds Whit dead, shot by Kathie. “You can’t make deals with a dead
man, Jeff,” she tells him. “Don’t you see, you’ve only me to make deals with
now.” “Then build my gallows high, baby,” he replies. As they drive away to-
gether, a police roadblock confronts them and Kathie realizes that Jeff has turned
her in. She shoots him, and a hail of police machine gun fire kills her as the car
crashes through the roadblock.
***
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If any one film could be said to epitomize the term film noir, Out of the Past
would be it. The tough hero who is doomed for love of the wrong woman; the
treacherous femme fatale who double-crosses every man she meets; the inevita-
bility of the past resurfacing to assure violent death; the night, when everything
seems to happen so commonly that daylight seems an intrusion; gangsters;
nightclubs; jazz; bright lights; deep shadows; a good woman lost; dialogue that
sounds like pulp poetry—all of it and more can be found in Out of the Past.
The author of the screenplay, Daniel Mainwaring, using the pseudonym
Geoffrey Homes, adapted his own novel, Build My Gallows High (the title under
which the film was released in England), and little was changed except the end-
ing, in which Whit’s henchmen do the killing. After the first draft had been com-
pleted, Mainwaring went on to another project and the producer decided to spiff
up the script and gave the rewrite job to James M. Cain, who was paid $20,000 or
$30,000 for his work. Instead of doing a rewrite, however, he threw out the entire
script and wrote a different story entirely. Mainwaring was then called back to
polish the initial script.
Jane Greer, the worst bad girl in all of film noir, was known as the girl with the
Mona Lisa smile, because her face was set in a perpetual gentle smile—the result
of a bout with Bell’s palsy when she was young.
The scene to watch is set in Mexico, as Mitchum sits in a little cantina, and
Greer strides in out of the sunlight, through shadows. She is wearing an off-white
dress and a big straw hat to match. Mitchum sees her, and he (and the viewer)
knows he is doomed.
The 1984 remake was titled Against All Odds, starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel
Ward, which was more explicitly steamy than the original. As remakes go, it was
pretty good, though without the very sexy Ward it probably would have been a
flop.
BEST LINE: Jeff/Bailey, speaking to Kathie Moffett, the girl who has inevitably
caused his doom: “You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to
another.”
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THE THIN MAN
1934

PRODUCER: Hunt Stromberg
DIRECTOR: W. S. Van Dyke
SCREENWRITERS: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
SOURCE: The Thin Man, novel by Dashiell
Hammett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
William Powell .............................................................Nick Charles
Myrna Loy ................................................................Nora Charles
Maureen O’Sullivan ......................................................Dorothy Wynant
Nat Pendleton ............................................................Lt. John Guild
Minna Gombell ............................................................Mimi Wynant
Cesar Romero ...........................................................Chris Jorgenson
Natalie Moorhead .............................................................Julia Wolf
Edward Ellis ..............................................................Clyde Wynant
Porter Hall .................................................................MacCauley
Henry Wadsworth ...............................................................Tommy
William Henry ...........................................................Gilbert Wynant
Harold Huber ...........................................................Nunheim
DID YOU KNOW? The on-screen chemistry between Powell and Loy was so
good that many people thought they were married in real life as well. On one
awkward occasion, a San Francisco hotel had them booked into a single room as
“Mr. & Mrs. Powell.” Powell, meanwhile, was dating Jean Harlow, who had traveled
to San Francisco to be with Powell while the film was being shot. The awkward
situation was resolved by Loy and Harlow sharing one room, while Powell took
the single room he had booked for Harlow.
THE STORY: Former private detective Nick Charles travels to New York for the
Christmas season with his wealthy wife, Nora. When the successful inventor
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Clyde Wynant disappears shortly before his daughter’s wedding, she asks Nick
to find him. Although Nick is interested exclusively in drinking, partying, and
watching over his wife’s finances, Nora persuades him to help the young woman.
He learns that Wynant had ruined his marriage by taking up with a young girl-
friend, who had another lover and stole $50,000 from Wynant just before his
disappearance. When the young mistress is murdered, suspicion falls on her
lover until he, too, turns up dead. In a classic denouement scene, Nick brings all
the remaining suspects together and identifies the surprise culprit.
Based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1934 novel, The Thin Man became a tremen-
dously successful film (one of the ten top-grossing films of 1934) and spurred
five additional films about the hard-drinking and fun-loving Nick and Nora. The
second Thin Man movie, After the Thin Man, was every bit the equal of the first,
and while the last four did not quite measure up, they remained popular with
audiences and continued to provide witty and sophisticated dialogue.
***
Lillian Hellman famously repeated often that she was the model for Nora, but
she also claimed to be the real-life prototype of the best-friend character in the
“biographical” movie Julia. The very existence of this saintly titular character is
suspect, and it stretches the imagination to think of the humorless Hellman as
having any connection to the very lovable Nora.
Asta, the hugely popular wire-haired terrier who played in all six Thin Man
films, was played by Skippy, and no one except his trainers was permitted to
interact with him while off camera. When Loy disobeyed the order and went to
pet Skippy, the dog bit her.
In one scene, a thug visits Nick and Nora in the middle of the night, and the
police come and capture him. After questioning Nick, they decide to search the
apartment. Nora spots one of them in her room and exclaims, “What’s that man
doing in my drawers?” causing Nick to spit out his drink (and hundreds of theater
operators to censor the line).
After the second film, it was reported that Powell would not continue in the role
because of illness, and Melvyn Douglas and Reginald Gardiner were considered
as his replacement. Happily, Powell recovered.
As has been noted on numerous occasions, the original Thin Man was the
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gaunt Wynant; however, audiences so much associated Powell with the title of
the first film that he then assumed the sobriquet.
Academy Award nominations went to The Thin Man for Best Picture, Powell
for Best Actor, Van Dyke for Best Director, and Goodrich and Hackett for Best
Adapted Screenplay.
BEST LINE: When the police discover a handgun in the Charles’s apartment,
a cop asks Nick if he has a permit, which he doesn’t. “Ever hear of the Sullivan
Act?” the cop asks. “Oh, that’s all right,” replies Nora. “We’re married.”
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LAURA
1944
TYPE OF FILM: Detective/Noir

PRODUCER: Otto Preminger
DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger (although begun by Rouben
Mamoulian)
SCREENWRITERS: Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty
Reinhardt
SOURCE: Laura, novel by Vera Caspary
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Gene Tierney ...............................................................Laura Hunt
Dana Andrews ..........................................................Mark McPherson
Clifton Webb ............................................................Waldo Lydecker
Vincent Price ...........................................................Shelby Carpenter
Judith Anderson ..........................................................Ann Treadwell
Dorothy Adams ..................................................................Bessie
DID YOU KNOW? Although Preminger got an Oscar nomination as Best

Director, he was merely a replacement for the first director, Rouben Mamoulian,
who had been forced on producer Preminger by Darryl Zanuck. Zanuck, the head
of Twentieth Century-Fox, hated the arrogant Preminger. The first rushes were
dreadful enough to cause Zanuck to fire Mamoulian and replace him with
Preminger.
THE STORY: A hard-boiled New York City detective, Mark McPherson,
attempts to solve the apparent murder of Laura Hunt, whose face has been blown
away by a shotgun blast in her beautiful Upper East Side apartment. The suspects
are wealthy snobs who find McPherson as abrasive as he finds them. Occupying
center stage is snippy gossip columnist Waldo Lydecker, given to such remarks
as, “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never found any
other subject quite so worthy of my attention,” and “It’s lavish, but I call it
home.” Laura’s fiancé, Shelby Carpenter, an unctuous Southern playboy, comes
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under suspicion, as does Ann Treadwell, who has set her cap for Carpenter and
was fiercely jealous of the beautiful Laura, her niece.
McPherson becomes mildly obsessed with the exquisite portrait of Laura that
hangs in her apartment and secretly arranges to purchase it. When Laura returns,
alive and well, from a quiet few days in the country, McPherson has to learn the
true identity of the corpse while competing for Laura’s affection with Waldo, who
is wittier, and Shelby, who is richer.
***
Although generally categorized as a noir film, Laura is more a mixture of ro-
mance and detective story in structure. Gene Tierney is heartbreakingly beauti-
ful, but she is not the noir film’s stereotypical bad girl who uses her lover, only to
abandon him when he has fallen hopelessly in love. Nor is there the bleak vision
of hopelessness so essential an element in the true noir film.
Neither of the two most memorable elements of Laura—the painting and the
music—are human. The sentimentalized portrait of Laura is so romantic that
McPherson falls in love with the subject even though she is presumed to be
dead. When she returns, the real-life Laura is less adored than her image. The
haunting theme music by David Raksin made it equally possible for every man in
the cinema to fall in love with the image of the ravishing Tierney, and that music
remains a staple of late-night piano bars and supper clubs.
Often described as everybody’s favorite mystery movie, Laura had a few slightly
odd subtexts. Although all the men in the movie seem to be in love with Laura,
Lydecker’s interest appears to be more as Pygmalion, and the rather fey journalist
gives a more meaningful look to the handsome McPherson when they first meet
than he ever does to Laura. Shelby, too, seems to walk on his toes a wee bit. And
for all her sexy beauty, Laura does not project very much heat, except perhaps
unintentionally.
Academy Award nominations went to Otto Preminger (Best Director) and Clifton
Webb (Best Supporting Actor). Astonishingly, the memorable theme music and
still much-loved song, “Laura,” did not get a statue.
The success that Clifton Webb had in this role clearly had an impact on him, as
he played a similar feisty and sharp-tongued character for the rest of his career.
The tightly controlled Dana Andrews turned to alcohol with greater and greater
reliance in later films, and within a decade, he was infamous for being continu-
286
ously drunk on the set of every film he was in. Gene Tierney slipped into paranoia
and was suicidal for some years, requiring institutionalization to save her. She
ultimately took a job as a clerk in a Topeka dress shop and, happily, married a
millionaire.
BEST LINE: Waldo Lydecker, clearly infatuated with Laura, asks tough cop
Mark McPherson, “Have you ever been in love, detective?” The laconic
McPherson replies, “A dame in Washington Heights once got a fox fur out of
me.”
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THE GODFATHER, PART II
1974
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Francis Ford Coppola
SCREENWRITERS: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo
SOURCE: Inspired by characters from The
Godfather, novel
by Mario Puzo
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Al Pacino .............................................................Michael Corleone
Robert Duvall ...............................................................Tom Hagen
Diane Keaton ........................................................Kay Adams Corleone
Robert De Niro ........................................................Don Vito Corleone
John Cazale .............................................................Fredo Corleone
Talia Shire .............................................................Connie Corleone
Lee Strasberg ..............................................................Hyman Roth
Michael V. Gazzo .......................................................Frankie Pentangeli
G. D. Spradlin ..........................................................Senator Pat Geary
Richard Bright ..................................................................Al Nevi
Gaston Moschin ................................................................Fanucci
DID YOU KNOW? The sequel to The Godfather is the most successful sequel
in the history of motion pictures. Although it was not quite the financial success
of its predecessor, costing twice as much and earning less than half, it nonetheless
was one of the biggest box-office successes of the year. In addition, and equally
important to many of those involved in the making of both films, it was an even
greater critical success, frequently described as being superior to the original
and having some tangible evidence of this in the form of awards. While The
Godfather was nominated for ten Oscars and won three, The Godfather, Part II
was nominated for eleven Oscars and won six, including Best Picture (the only
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time in the history of Hollywood that two films in a series have both won that
award); Francis Ford Coppola for Best Director; Robert De Niro for Best Supporting
Actor (defeating Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg, who both appeared in the
film as well); and Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola for Best Adapted
Screenplay, repeating their triumph of two years earlier.
THE STORY: In 1918 Italy, young Vito Corleone sees his family murdered and
moves to New York City. Married and working in a small shop, he loses his job
when a gangster forces his boss to hire his nephew. Desperate for money, he
joins forces with a couple of small-time hoodlums and they become successful
gangsters, finally taking over an olive oil importing firm. Although still a crook, he
becomes a dignified and respected member of the community and rises to head a
mob family.
Vito’s son Michael takes over the responsibility of head of the family and is
threatened by a powerful and corrupt U.S. senator who wants to extort money
from him. When Michael refuses, he becomes targeted for assassination. The
attempt fails and Michael gathers ample evidence against the senator, assuring
him that he will be left alone.
Having successfully entered the casino-gambling business in Las Vegas,
Michael sees an equally huge opportunity in Havana, Cuba, and meets with
Jewish gangster Hyman Roth to set up operations there, only to have his plans
thwarted by the overthrow of the Batista government, which had been coopera-
tive in hopes of making Havana an even greater tourist attraction.
When Michael returns to America, he learns that his wife, Kay, tired of a life
inseparable from crime, is about to leave him just as he becomes the prime target
of a massive government investigation of organized crime.
***
When Francis Ford Coppola made Part II, he reasoned that it would be suc-
cessful only if audiences felt that it needed to be made in order to round out and
complete the saga of the Corleone family. Because of the unimaginable success
of the first movie, he was given virtually total control of the film and was able to
do whatever he wanted to in a creative sense. He immediately signed Mario Puzo
to again work on the screenplay, feeling (correctly) that no one knew these char-
acters better than he did.
Al Pacino recommended Lee Strasberg for the role of Hyman Roth. Although
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the world’s most famous acting teacher, Strasberg never had appeared before a
camera.
In the scene in which Michael (played by Al Pacino) learns that his brother
Fredo (played by John Cazale) has betrayed the family, he shows signs of tremen-
dous stress. Some of this wasn’t acting—Pacino was rushed to the hospital with
pneumonia immediately after shooting of the scene concluded.
The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II were combined to make The Godfa-
ther Saga for television in 1977, with NBC airing it for nine hours over a four-day
period, reaching a huge audience. The films were heavily edited, and previously
unseen footage was added, eliminating the flashbacks to produce a linear chro-
nology of the Corleone family’s history. Also eliminated was much of the sex,
obscenity, and violence, all of which were restored for the videotape, which ran
388 minutes and was titled The Godfather: The Complete Epic.
Even before The Godfather was released, plans were under way to make a
sequel. Various titles under consideration were The Son of Don Corleone, Michael
Corleone, and Don Michael.
The Godfather, Part III was released in 1990 but did not enjoy much success.
Puzo and Coppola again wrote the script, which lacked the fire of the first two
films, but the casting of Coppola’s daughter Sofia, essentially an amateur, in the
key role of Mary Corleone was the film’s biggest problem. Coppola is still often
asked if there will be a fourth film in the series, and he has never given a definite
no.
BEST LINE: Michael Corleone, noting words of wisdom from his father, Don
Vito: “Keep your friends dose, but your enemies closer.”
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THE GODFATHER
1972
TYPE OF FILM: Crime

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Albert S. Ruddy
SCREENWRITERS: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo
SOURCE: The Godfather, novel by Mario Puzo
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Marlon Brando ........................................................Don Vito Corleone
Al Pacino .............................................................Michael Corleone
James Caan .............................................................Sonny Corleone
Richard Castellano ..............................................................Peter Clemenza
Sterling Hayden .............................................................McCluskey
Diane Keaton ...........................................................................Kay Adams
Talia Shire .........................................................Connie Corleone Rizzi
Robert Duvall ...............................................................Tom Hagen
John Marley .................................................................Jack Woltz
Richard Conte ............................................................................Barzini
Al Lettieri ....................................................................Sollozzo
Abe Vigoda ..................................................................Sal Tessio
Gianni Russo .................................................................................................Carlo Rizzi
John Cazale .............................................................Fredo Corleone
Rudy Bond .....................................................................Cuneo
Al Martino ..............................................................Johnny Fontane
Morgana King ....................................................Mama Carmella Corleone
DID YOU KNOW? The most important and successful casting decision for
The Godfather was for the central figure of Don Vito Corleone. Mario Puzo, the
author of the novel, had always envisioned Marlon Brando for this pivotal role,
and both the producer and director agreed that Brando had the talent, the charisma,
and the sheer gravitas to play the head of the powerful family. But several things
291
weighed against this choice with the executives at Paramount. First, Brando’s
films had been commercial failures for more than a decade, and, equally important,
he was regarded as one of the most difficult actors in Hollywood to work with.
Stanley Jaffe is reputed to have said, “As long as I’m president of the studio,
Marlon Brando will not be in this picture, and I will no longer allow you to discuss
it.” He further is reported to have said, “If Marlon Brando is in the picture, it will
gross five million less than if no one is in it.” When Coppola finally persuaded
Jaffe to change his mind, it was under the most insulting conditions ever handed
down to an actor of Brando’s stature. He would have to submit to a screen test,
accept far less money than the actor’s usual minimum, and to assume personal
financial responsibility for any delays in production caused by his actions.
Incredibly, Brando accepted the terms and went on to win an Oscar for his
performance.
THE STORY: At the wedding reception of Vito Corleone’s daughter, Connie,
his godson, Johnny Fontane, asks the don for help in getting a movie role that
will revive his career. Corleone sends his adopted son and counselor, Tom Hagen,
to Hollywood to convince the film’s producer that, in spite of his previous rejection,
he ought to cast Fontane in the coveted role. When the producer again refuses,
he awakens to find the head of his prize racehorse in bed with him, causing him to
change his mind.
When Vito’s son Michael, who has tried to stay away from an involvement
with crime, visits his father, who has been gunned down, in the hospital, he sees
that the police guard has been sent away by Captain McCluskey, a corrupt cop,
and saves Vito from a second attempt on his life. Michael’s love for his father
draws him into the family business, and at a meeting called to settle differences
among the various crime factions, Michael kills both Sollozzo and his hireling,
McCluskey. He then escapes to Sicily to be protected by friends and relatives of
the Corleone family, leaving his fiancée, Kay Adams, behind.
War breaks out among the various crime families and results in the murder of
Sonny, Don Vito’s son, causing the Don to negotiate a truce with the other
families and agree to become involved with the despised but lucrative drug trade
that began the battles.
Michael, still in Sicily, has fallen in love with Apollonia and married her, only to
see her killed when a car bomb intended for him explodes. He returns to America
and Kay to become the head of the Corleone crime empire.
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Planning to expand the family’s influence in Las Vegas, he tries to buy a casino
but is rebuffed by Moe Greene, who has the protection of another crime family.
Michael plots revenge for various acts against himself and his family, especially
the murder of Sonny. As his nephew is baptized, all his principal enemies are
gunned down and his position is secured as the new Don Corleone.
***
The significance of The Godfather and its sequels cannot be overstated. Mario
Puzo’s long novel created a world that never existed as he shows it. His book
added words and phrases to the language, including godfather in the context of
the Mafia (which is never mentioned in the book and only rarely in the three
Godfather movies) and swimming with the fishes which connotes a murdered
body thrown into the river or ocean. Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s vision of
the largely Italian underworld seems so real and so complete that readers and
viewers come away feeling that this is what it’s really like.
When Paramount acquired film rights to The Godfather, it was expected to be
a huge blockbuster, with a large budget and sprawling canvas. Then the studio
released The Brotherhood, another “Mafia” picture, with Kirk Douglas, which
proved unsuccessful, forcing Paramount executives to rethink the wisdom of
making another gangster film. Backing away from its initial grandiose plans, they
budgeted the film at $2,000,000, hired the relatively unknown Francis Ford Coppola
to direct it when every other director they approached turned it down, and got
Albert S. Ruddy to produce it. As the producer of one television show and three
failed motion pictures, the only reason he was hired is that Paramount knew he
could make the film cheaply. It was finished well over the original budget, costing
$6,500,000.
In perhaps the most famous scene in The Godfather, movie producer Jack
Woltz is persuaded to hire Johnny Fontane by waking up to find the bloody head
of his prize racehorse in bed with him. The head was real. The studio prop looked
nothing like what Coppola wanted, so someone was sent to a slaughterhouse to
find a head. It was frozen and used in several takes.
The Godfather was nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Pic-
ture, Best Director (Coppola), Best Actor (Brando), Best Supporting Actor (James
Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino), and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won only
three (Best Picture, Actor, and Screenplay) as Cabaret won eight Oscars. The
293
presenter for Best Picture was Clint Eastwood, who substituted for Charlton
Heston, who got stuck in traffic. The producer, Albert S. Ruddy, an old friend of
Eastwood’s, had jokingly asked him earlier to read his name when he opened the
envelope, no matter what name was on the card, and then quickly eat the card.
When Eastwood named him the winner, Ruddy actually believed for a moment
that Eastwood had done as he had been asked.
BEST LINE: Nearly washed-up singer Johnny Fontane has asked Don Corleone
for help in getting an important film role. “I’ll handle it,” he tells the singer. When
asked how he will manage it, the don famously responds, “I’m gonna make him an
offer he can’t refuse.”
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CHINATOWN
1974

STUDIO: Paramount
PRODUCER: Robert Evans
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
SCREENWRITER: Robert Towne
SOURCE: Original
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Jack Nicholson .........................................................J. J. “Jake” Gittes
Faye Dunaway ..........................................................Evelyn Mulwray
John Huston ................................................................Noah Cross
Perry Lopez ...................................................................Escobar
John Hillerman ...............................................................Yelburton
Darrell Zwerling ..........................................................Hollis Mulwray
Roman Polanski ..........................................................hood with knife
Dick Bakalyan ...................................................................Loach
Diane Ladd ................................................................Ida Sessions
Roy Jenson ...................................................................Mulvihill
Joe Mantell .....................................................................Walsh
Bruce Glover ....................................................................Duffy
DID YOU KNOW? This superb detective film was actually based on a true
scandal of early twentieth-century Los Angeles. Then a modest-size western city
filled with farmers, Mexican day laborers, Chinese immigrants, and adventurers
seeking their fortunes in the west, it was also a hot, subtropical region that relied
for its existence and well-being on a plentiful supply of water. A scheme had been
hatched by a group of wealthy landowners to buy huge tracts on the outskirts of
the sprawling city and then use their political power to have that arid, nearly
useless acreage incorporated into the city of Los Angeles, giving them legal
access to the water supply paid for by the taxpayers. Some of the most staggering
fortunes of the time, many still in place (such as the heirs to L.A. Times-Mirror
295
estate), were created in this manner. While the tactics employed to amass this
wealth may have been corrupt, they were technically legal.
THE STORY: J. J. “Jake” Gittes (whose name is pronounced differently by
virtually everyone with whom he comes in contact) is a former Los Angeles
policeman who worked in Chinatown but now is a private detective handling
mainly divorce cases in Hollywood. He is hired ostensibly to find evidence against
a philandering water commissioner, Hollis Mulwray, by a woman claiming to be
Mulwray’s wife. While working on that case, he is also hired by the wealthy Noah
Cross to find his daughter and granddaughter. Gittes comes to believe that he
has been used as a pawn to set up Cross in the murder of Mulwray, who has
discovered a scam to cheat the people of Los Angeles out of the water they need
and for which they pay.
Gittes is warned off the case by a former cop and his partner, whom Gittes calls
a midget. Feeling a verbal warning would not suffice, the tough holds a knife to
Gittes’s nose. “You’re a very nosy fellow,” he says to Gittes. “You know what
happens to nosy fellows? Wanna guess? No? Okay. They lose their noses.” He
cuts through Gitte’s nostril and adds, “Next time, you lose the whole thing. I’ll cut
it off and feed it to my goldfish.”
Gittes persists and learns that Mulwray’s wife, Evelyn, is Cross’ daughter and
that the woman who hired him was actually not Evelyn but her sister—and also
her daughter, the result of an incestuous relationship with her father, Noah Cross.
Cross, already a multimillionaire, is the mastermind behind a scheme to buy
arid, virtually worthless farms during a terrible drought and have the land irri-
gated by diverted water from nearby Los Angeles, guaranteeing the elderly ty-
coon even greater wealth and power. Gittes tries to protect Evelyn and her daughter
from her ruthless father but is arrested. Powerless, Evelyn tries to escape, only to
be shot by a policeman as her fifteen-year-old daughter, screaming in despair at
the sight of her dead mother, is comforted by an almost leering Cross.
***
Chinatown is an original screenplay by Towne that started out at nearly 250
pages (twice as long as the film). Director Roman Polanski worked on the script
for nearly two months, eliminating many characters and forming a more linear and
coherent story line. He also wrote a new ending, about which he and Towne
argued furiously. The final version had not been decided upon until after the
296
picture was in production. In the original, Evelyn shoots Cross and goes off with
Gittes and her daughter, but Polanski wanted the darker version that was eventu-
ally made. Towne never forgave the change and hated it.
Although a brilliant neo-noir film that paid open homage to Dashiell Hammett
(Gittes bears numerous similarities to Sam Spade), James M. Cain (whose charac-
ters are rarely moral), Raymond Chandler (it is his Los Angeles in which the
action transpires), and others, there is a major diversion from prototypical noir
films: Evelyn Mulwray. Introduced and set up as the classic femme fatale for
whom Gittes will fall, only to be betrayed by her greedy and cold heart, she
instead turns out to be the victim whose life has been clouded by a terrible secret
from which she can never escape.
Polanski may have been influenced in favor of his darker version of the story
as he was still mourning the brutal murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, their
unborn child, and several friends by members of the Charles Manson family. The
brief but memorable scene in which Polanski uses a knife to slit open Nicholson’s
nose, forcing him to wear bandages for the rest of the film, reflects the brutal
violence of the killings. Several years later, Polanski was arrested for the statu-
tory rape of a thirteen-year-old girl and fled the United States to avoid prosecu-
tion.
Robert Towne was awarded an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, while Acad-
emy Award nominations also went to the film for Best Picture, to Nicholson for
Best Actor, to Dunaway for Best Actress, and Polanski for Best Director. Towne
won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his
screenplay.
Faye Dunaway, while glamorous and sexy, is not especially beautiful in this
role. Director Polanski was more interested in making her seem subtly paranoid,
sexually frustrated, and—reasonably—secretive. This effect is achieved by hav-
ing her face overly powdered, with oddly thin eyebrows and deep red lipstick.
Polanski filmed her by holding the camera very close to her face, which made
even the experienced and talented actress unduly jumpy.
Given the tremendous critical and popular acclaim received by the film, there
was a much discussed and anticipated sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), which was,
predictably, a disappointment. It was directed by its star, Jack Nicholson, in a
beautiful but ultimately incomprehensible and overly talky narrative that also
297
starred Harvey Keitel (as the other Jake) and Meg Tilly as a philandering wife.
Faye Dunaway has a nice cameo.
BEST LINE: Policeman to Jake Gittes: “You must really think I’m stupid, don’t
you, Gittes?” “I don’t think about it that much,” the detective replies, “but give
me a day or two and I’ll get back to you.”
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THE MALTESE FALCON
1941

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Henry Blanke
PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis
SCREENWRITER: John Huston
SOURCE: The Maltese Falcon, novel by
Dashiell Hammett
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Humphrey Bogart ............................................................Sam Spade
Mary Astor ............................................Ruth Wonderley/Brigid O’Shaughnessy
Peter Lorre ..................................................................Joel Cairo
Sydney Greenstreet ............................................Casper Gutman—The Fat Man
Ward Bond .................................................Detective Sergeant Tom Polhaus
Gladys George ...............................................................Iva Archer
Barton MacLane ................................................Detective Lieutenant Dundy
Elisha Cook, Jr. ............................................................Wilmer Cook
Lee Patrick .................................................................Effie Perine
Jerome Cowan .............................................................Miles Archer
DID YOU KNOW? John Huston, one of the top writers at Warner Brothers,
made his directorial debut with this, the third film version of Dashiell Hammett’s
detective novel. Because he was a first-time director, and because the film was a
remake, Huston’s first choice for the role of Sam Spade, George Raft, turned it
down. Humphrey Bogart, who had been playing villains in B movies, accepted
the role and became a huge star.
THE STORY: Ruth Wonderley comes to the office of Spade & Archer for an
ambiguous reason and hires Spade. She soon admits that her real name is Brigid
O’Shaughnessy and that she hadn’t told the truth about her plight. Bogart
reassures her, saying that he hadn’t believed her—he had believed her two
299
hundred dollars. Archer is later shot and killed in an alley, and Spade, although he
hates his partner and is having an affair with his wife, vows to find the killer. He
is successful, saying, “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do
something about it.”
Spade learns that the lovely O’Shaughnessy is involved with a gang of strange
and shady characters led by Casper Gutman, a fat man who has spent the last
seventeen years of his life in pursuit of a legendary artifact worth a fortune: a
statue of a falcon encrusted with jewels. His employees are the effeminate Joel
Cairo and the nervous Wilmer Cook.
When a mortally wounded sea captain carrying a parcel falls through Spade’s
door, Spade unexpectedly has possession of the treasure, which he persists in
calling the “dingus.” Spade, under suspicion by the police for the murder of
Archer, must prove his innocence while hunting for the real killer and working out
a deal with the unflappable Gutman for a share of the fortune.
***
The Maltese Falcon is the most famous American detective novel, and it may
be the greatest American detective film. The 1941 version remains the perfect film
more than a half century after it was made, and the cast stays fixed in the memory
forever once it’s been seen.
Interestingly, Hammett had worked as a Pinkerton detective, and all the sup-
porting cast were based on real-life characters he’d encountered as a private
operative. Gutman’s original was suspected of being a German spy, and after
Hammett followed him for many days, he said, “I never remember shadowing a
man who bored me so much.” He’d picked up the Cairo character on a forgery
charge. The prototype for Effie, the good-girl secretary, suggested that he go
into the narcotics-smuggling business with her. Wilmer, the gunsel, was a twenty-
one-year-old with a smooth face and quiet manner, who took pride in being called
“The Midget Bandit” by the newspapers.
The famed actor Walter Huston agreed to do a small scene for his son John, the
director, and played the murdered sea captain, Jacobi. As a joke, John Huston
forced his father to do retake after retake, falling down again and again, getting
more and more bruised after each take.
The first film version of The Maltese Falcon (1931) was a well-made film star-
ring Ricardo Cortez as Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderley/Brigid
300
O’Shaughnessy. A second version, titled Satan Met a Lady (1936), was a disas-
ter, with Bette Davis in the Casper Gutman role and Warren William (as Ted
Shayne).
Oscar nominations went to the film for Best Picture and to Sydney Greenstreet
(in his first film) for Best Supporting Actor.
BEST LINE: When all the suspects have been gathered and arrested, Lt. Polhaus
picks up the falcon and asks Spade what it is. The detective replies, “The stuff
that dreams are made of.”
301
THE THIRD MAN
1949

STUDIO: London Films
PRODUCER: Carol Reed
DIRECTOR: Carol Reed
SCREENWRITER: Graham Greene
SOURCE: The Third Man, novella by Graham Greene
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Orson Welles ...............................................................Harry Lime
Joseph Cotten .............................................................Holly Martins
(Alida) Valli ..............................................................Anna Schmidt
Trevor Howard ...........................................................Major Calloway
Bernard Lee ..............................................................Sergeant Paine
Paul Hoerbiger ..................................................................Porter
Wilfrid Hyde-White .................................................................Crabbin
Ernst Deutsch .............................................................“Baron” Kurtz
Sigfried Breuer ............................................................Popescu
Erich Ponto .................................................................Dr. Winkel
DID YOU KNOW? Graham Greene based the villainous Harry Lime on Kim
Philby, the infamous British double agent. Greene had been a member of the
British Secret Intelligence Service until 1944, when he abruptly resigned. It has
been suggested that the reason for his resignation was that he suspected Philby
of being a traitor and did not want to actively assist him. Greene, himself a
Communist sympathizer and apologist, did not report Philby, who continued his
activities for some time after Greene’s resignation.
THE STORY: American novelist Holly Martins is invited to take a job with his
old friend Harry Lime in postwar Vienna, which is divided into four occupied
zones (English, American, French, and Russian). Martins arrives to find that his
friend has been killed in an automobile accident. He rushes to the cemetery,
302
where he sees Lime’s lovely girlfriend, Anna, and meets Major Calloway, who
informs him that Lime was a criminal, dealing in black-market penicillin that he
watered down, killing or harming numbers of children.
Martins vows to clear Lime’s name and meets with Anna, who believes Lime
was murdered. Although Lime’s friend Kurtz tells them that Lime lived long
enough for his physician to show up, the porter in Lime’s building says he died
instantly. When Martin and Anna return to question the porter further, they find
he has been murdered.
After Martins has seen children hospitalized because of diluted penicillin, he is
disgusted by his friend’s actions and decides to return to the United States, but
not before telling Anna that he has fallen in love with her. As he leaves her rooms,
he spots Lime, who is not dead after all. Martins calls Major Calloway, and to-
gether they search for Lime, without success. When they arrange to have Lime’s
coffin exhumed, another man’s body is found in his place.
Martins and Lime arrange to meet at a Ferris wheel in an amusement park,
where Lime casually talks of his criminal acts, comparing people to little dots on
the ground from their great height and warning Martins to stay away from the
police. Martins goes to the police anyway, offering to help capture Lime if they
will ensure safe passage out of Vienna for Anna, who angrily refuses the offer
and now regards Martins as a betrayer of his friend. Martins sets himself up as a
decoy, but when Lime arrives, Anna warns him and he flees to his secret escape
route in the giant sewers of Vienna. Fleeing, Line shoots a British soldier but is
himself shot by Martins.
***
There are numerous differences between the film and the book, which was
written essentially to be a film treatment without thought to publication as a
novel; it was published after the release of the film.
In Greene’s book, the main male characters are British, and as the story con-
cludes, Holly Martins and Anna walk away together. In the film version, Cotten
waits for her as she slowly walks toward him on a long tree-lined path; she never
looks at him as she walks past him.
The first choice to play Holly Martins was Cary Grant, with Noel Coward
selected to play Harry Lime. When the film was rewritten to make those charac-
ters American, David O. Selznick, the president of London Films, suggested Rob-
303
ert Mitchum for the role of Lime, as his popularity had increased dramatically
after the headlines reported his arrest for marijuana possession. His presence,
noted Selznick, would be hugely important at the box office, while the other actor
considered, Orson Welles, would not add a dollar to the gross, he wrote in a
memo. When Mitchum was sentenced to jail and therefore unable to work, Welles
took the role because he was, not unusually, in dire need of money to finance his
film, Othello.
The most famous line in the film (see below) was written by Orson Welles, not
Graham Greene. In fact, it has been reported that Welles wrote virtually all the
dialogue for every scene in which he appears.
There are two versions of The Third Man. The British version begins with a
voice-over by producer/director Carol Reed, in which the division of Vienna into
zones is described. This version is approximately eleven minutes longer than the
American, which was somewhat re-edited by Selznick. Here, the voice-over is
narrated by Joseph Cotten.
Carol Reed received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The only
Oscar the film won was for Robert Krasker’s black-and-white cinematography. It
was named Best Film at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1952, the BBC produced a radio series variously titled The Third Man, The
Lives of Harry Lime, and Harry Lime Adventures, with Orson Welles as the voice
of the protagonist. Seven years later, BBC Television and Twentieth Century-Fox
coproduced a syndicated television series, The Third Man, which starred Michael
Rennie as Lime, who was now an international adventurer.
The very famous theme music by Anton Karas, known as “The Third Man
Theme,” was played throughout the film on a zither and became a best-selling
record in the United Kingdom; it was also used as the theme for the radio series.
BEST LINE: Harry Lime: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had
warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo
da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred
years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”
304
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77. Harper 1966 74

76. The Fallen Idol 1948 77

75. In the Line of Fire 1993 80

74. Murder On the Orient Express 1974 83

73. Charade 1963 87

72. The Blue Dahlia 1946 90

71. To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 93

70. Kiss Me Deadly 1955 96

69. The Petrified Forest 1936 99

68. The Asphalt Jungle 1950 101

67. In Cold Blood 1967 104

66. The 39 Steps 1935 106

65. Freaks 1932 109

64. Notorious 1946 112

63. Fatal Attraction 1987 114

62. D.O.A. 1950 117

61. Foreign Correspondent 1940 119

60. Suspicion 1941 122

59. Crossfire 1947 125

58. Kiss of Death 1947 128

57. Spellbound 1945 131

56. Topkapi 1964 134

55. Key Largo 1948 137

54. The Fugitive 1993 140

53. The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956 143

51. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 149

50. Scarface 1932 152

49. Goldfinger 1964 155

48. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang 1932 158

47. The Manchurian Candidate 1962 161

46. Mean Streets 1973 164

45. Dirty Harry 1971 167

44. Little Caesar 1930 171

43. The Big Heat 1953 173

42 And Then There Were None 1945 175

41. Detective Story 1951 179

40. L.A. Confidential 1997 182

39. The Day of the Jackal 1973 185

38. To Have and Have Not 1944 188

37. Blade Runner 1982 191

36. GoodFellas 1990 195

35. The Untouchables 1987 198

34. Rear Window 1954 201

33. Criss Cross 1949 204

32. Silence of the Lambs 1991 207

31. Murder, My Sweet 1944 210

30. The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946 213

29. The Big Sleep 1946 217