Noir
D.O.A.
The Killing
The list of films I want and need to watch seems endless — and they’re not all horror films — though many of them belong to another dark and dangerous genre: film noir. In the 1940s and 50s the noir genre reigned supreme. It introduced mysteries, murders, and deceit to the cookie-cutter wholesomeness of budding American suburbia — where there was seemingly nothing to worry about (ya know, if you were white), so Humphrey Bogart, with a 4-piece suit up to his nips, fast-talking to a brassy broad with a secret probably was the peak of scintillating entertainment. These films are guaranteed to have a cynical, no-nonsense, slightly untrustworthy protagonist, and a puzzle of a plot that may or may not be satisfying. (Here’s lookin at you, The Big Sleep. Read the book, it’s better.) Though many of the stories of film noir were adapted from the crime fiction novels borne out of The Great Depression, this genre and its audience has evolved immensely since its advent, and finds a way to remain interesting, suspenseful, and relevant, all these decades later. For whatever pretentious, film bro-constructed reason, this genre is easy to characterize, but tough to define. Some people say that film noir can’t even be considered a genre in and of itself, but rather as a type of style. Yes, low-lighting and police procedurals and dirty businessmen belong to the “style” of film noir. But by even using this classification/term, we’re attributing these films to a certain type of genre. Film noir. Which is very popular, often-replicated type of storytelling, so why is it so bad to single it out? It’s a genre that began as an unpretentious exploration of the grimy side of humanity, but over time it has been adopted by the biggest, most gatekeep-y film nerds this niche sphere has ever known. I even felt some weird sort of pressure with this week’s theme, because film people are oh-so protective of noir — just reading the damn Wikipedia page about film noir gave me war flashbacks to the movie elitists in my college film studies classes. But for any fellow critic reading this: you’ll be happy to know that neither of tonight’s films sucked. D.O.A., a lesser-discussed film my mom suggested, proved to be nothing like I expected. D.O.A. follows Frank Bigelow, a man whom we meet just as he’s about to die. He stumbles into a police office and engages in some dialogue you just know had these people losing their minds in 1946:
Bigelow: “I’d like to report a murder.”
Cop: “Who was murdered?”
Bigelow: “Me.”
Frank Bigelow has been poisoned, and he only has about an hour and twenty-three minutes to tell the tale. It’s one with brutish tough guys, subservient women, twists and turns and despite all of my thought-up theories throughout, an ending I didn’t see coming. There’s a surprising amount of funny dialogue here, and not just funny for the 40s, a dry, self-aware, sarcastic humor you’d expect to hear perhaps in a noir parody that could’ve been made today. The protagonist (Edmond O’Brien), while a complete asshole to his girlfriend (Pamela Britton), is guilty of no crimes and no convoluted schemes in particular. D.O.A. is a rare one for film noir, because it involves a hero who is truly innocent, who we know won’t make it to the end of the movie. I found it to be incredibly fun, and far more entertaining than other crime narratives I’ve seen and read from that decade, with a sense of humor that was unexpectedly withstandable. The same was true for the 1956 film The Killing, one of Stanley Kubrick’s earliest and most intriguing films. The Killing was somehow even funnier and more captivating than D.O.A., not just because of its gripping story, but because of the way it was told. Kubrick, always ahead of his time, sets up these dominoes meticulously, and lets them fall in unpredictable, often deadly ways. The Killing introduces us to five men who are about to rob a racetrack: George the teller (and his wife who just roasts him the whole movie and it’s wonderful), Mike the racetrack bartender, Randy the crooked cop, Marvin the investor, and their ringleader Johnny Clay — who’s just out of jail and is looking to pull one last job before him and his lady run off into the sunset. This would have been an interesting film to watch, even if everything in this premise went to plan. But the fact that everything turns wicked and wild makes it all the better. What’s also crazy about this film, other than the fact it was apparently Rodney Dangerfield’s first time on screen??, is that test audiences did not respond well to its non-linear storytelling structure. Kubrick had to re-edit the film in order but that was deemed even more confusing, so they settled on the original format, with an added narration from the main character — an addition that greatly frustrated Kubrick. It’s also insane that Kubrick evidently took no fee as director of this film, especially considering how much this movie pretty much immediately kickstarted the rest of his career and became a favorite of people like Tarantino. In classic Kubrick fashion, this is a film about the failings of man, specifically the avarice of man. It remains relevant for this reason alone, but elements of this film also live on in other cinematic references (see The Dark Knight and Terminator 2 and Reservoir Dogs) This is a tense, terribly twisted story, even for noir standards. And while the ending to this movie is phenomenal, I reeeeeally wish I could tell you how the novel this is based on (Lionel White’s Clean Break) has a far more gruesome final act. With all due respect to films made before 1980, The Killing isn’t too slow or too melodramatic, it’s just fun and genuinely suspenseful. An incredible ensemble cast, a tangled web of a story, and enough cigarettes, booze, and bad ideas to make any film noir fan proud. But don’t watch it to impress your film friends, watch it because it’s great and features a horse named Stanley K. Was Stanley Kubrick a horse girl? You’ll just have to watch and see for yourself!
