Noir: Because of You, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and Between Midnight and Dawn

BECAUSE OF YOU (1952) --- So it’s noir when Kino puts it in a box set
and calls it that. Fine, am willing to suspend disbelief where obscurities
like Because of You get released, under whatever umbrella. Because of You is
melodrama of mother love like myriad others, only this has Loretta Young. Did she
get a percentage for being here, like others of approximate age who swapped
star recognition for placement in utterly routine genre projects? (U-I paid Linda
Darnell $7500 per week for a guaranteed ten weeks when she did The Lady Pays Off) Not to diminish Because
of You, for Universal did these expertly, and no star was shamed for being in
them. This was Young’s penultimate theatrical feature, one more and then TV
exclusive. She was thirty-nine and looking less, credible opposite five years
her junior Jeff Chandler. Don’t know how that was managed but will guess avoidance
of nicotine and alcohol figured in, these being robbers of youth from peers, many
around a shorter time and younger than Young. Did Chandler reflect on his
kiss-mate having once been Lon Chaney’s leading lady? (Senior, not Creighton) Apologize now for before being
snide re her acting, Young ideal for a set-up like this. Because of You read
my thoughts and disposed of Alex Nicol right when I wanted them to. A second
half better than the first departs the crime theme and zeroes in on rapprochement
of LY with a moody kid she lost for breaking parole and helping Alex smuggle
drugs out of Tijuana and … well, enough about that. Why spoil your upcoming 95-minute
pleasure?
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Just Noticed: Her Expression is the Same in Both Stills Above |
Vet actresses seized the bit of early television and did the anthology
thing. Loretta Young was one, plus Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman, June Allyson, others. Young spoke later of playing a wide variety of parts for those half-hours. My vague
recollection of The Loretta Young Show is swirling entry through a door her
voluminous dress could barely get past, being intro for each show. All
that and versatile acting too. Episodes are at You Tube and stream elsewhere. Don’t
know how much cash Young realized from TV but bet it was immense. Wiser heads knew
tubes were the future and cast lots there early. Should someone want an untrod
topic for women pioneering in media, let them resurrect anthology programs done
during the fifties, because here is where actresses achieved much that has been little seen in a
last sixty-seventy years, big enough names to have creative control and see
dramas done their way. It would take digging and research (all those prints!), but
this strikes me as a project well worth someone (other than me) doing. Because
of You is of sort that would not be around much longer, for it and ones like it
were nurtured by a system which support beams held less and less strength. Television giving same stories at much diminished cost was
accepted because these were at least convenient and more importantly free. Plot/outcomes
were so familiar as to demand less attention than accorded them when
fresher and in theatres. What was focused on in shared darkness became mere background for busy
households. Loretta Young would have understood this and so confined her dramas
to half-hour not taxing to home viewers who had more pressing and immediate
concerns. Because of You is available on
Blu-Ray, among boxed noirs from Kino.
BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (2007) --- From a folder I call
“desperation noir,” which for many comes to how much desperation he/she can
absorb before becoming desperate him/herself. Is there damage from surfeit of
these? I regret watching all the Sopranos, nasty scenes from which still haunt my
dreams. Parents used to worry for children influenced by juve delinquent movies or terrified
by spook shows, but oh my stars, look at us now. A friend had teenagers who
watched entire so-far run of The Walking Dead over a family beach week. What
sort of mental health could derive from this? Warren William were he still
around might prosper on the anti-depressant racket, it booming for plenty good
reason if what currently streams is evidence. Charm of the cobra that is Before
the Devil Knows You’re Dead is well-construction and it being so compelling, a
late project for Sidney Lumet who surely confided in friends how times had
changed. You can’t take your eyes off shows like this… but keep valium handy to wash it down. Before
the Devil Knows You’re Dead is of worthless brothers who frame a family-owned
jewelry store robbery where their mother (then-80 year old Rosemary Harris) is
shot down and killed. I was in tremulous state from this point to the end.
Is much of modern noir offspring of R.Widmark pushing the old lady down
stairs? No longer an outrage as in 1947, we wonder nowaday what’s wrong where such does
not happen. Still we stay to bitter ends, in Devil instance Albert Finney at his
son’s hospital bedside, and don’t say you weren’t warned. Structure is wonky after
fashion(able) examples of The Killing, much later Pulp Fiction and the one (by
now many) that play backwards, which Devil sort of does. There is something
satanic about films so ugly that compel so much. Remember how relaxing it once
was for Jane Greer to double-cross Robert Mitchum? Another distinct downer re
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character snorting
up and or mainlined by a scuzzy dealer. Then I remember what happened to Philip
Seymour Hoffman, his death drug-induced … and yes, in 2014, dead on the
bathroom floor, a syringe still in his arm, two envelopes of heroin beside him.
Such a fine actor to finish like this. Movies can and do get too close to life, today more than ever it seems.
BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN (1950) --- Radio-car canvasses Columbia
backlot and occasional L.A. streets, Mark Stevens and Edmond O’Brien badges on
the job. Gordon Douglas does workmanlike direction. It doesn’t get dull thanks
to likeable officer pairing, Stevens on wolf as much as police patrol (quarry
is Gale Storm), while O’Brien obsesses over thugs getting away with thuggery. The
boys room together in one boarding house or rental after another. They
end up with duplex situation beside Storm and her mother, where childish antics
presage rivalry to determine which she will choose to cast marital lot with.
Neither might be any sensible woman’s choice, but women were lots more adaptable
in 1950, or so writers figured for tales told in rudimentary, formula-driven ways. Movies spoke unlike life, but a Between Midnight and Dawn, modest as it was, cut at times truthful slice off fruit too ripe otherwise. There are moments to stun, a child
hung by feet out a high window, never a favored plot device with me, action quick
and ruthless where and when it comes.
Violence in Code films has capacity for surprise, us expecting a
pull-back but getting full-face instead (remember The Big Heat, also from
Columbia). Between Midnight and Dawn pleases if cops on duty, neither rogue, fill
your cup, and there’s nighttime whale of a chase through crowded downtown that
makes one wish all location had been done on real locations. Much of noir,
especially by majors, amounted to such hybrid. They had city streets on site to
shoot, cheaper done that way of course, but backlots rob atmosphere, especially
where the real thing gets used for parts only, always the best parts (Act of Violence compromised along same lines). Between Midnight and Dawn was good for
only so much in rentals, $548K domestic being limit here. Chances are it played
lower on most bills. For Columbia, crime thrilling was barely up from westerns
unless Glenn Ford was around. A small show like Between Midnight and Dawn
benefits from visual boost via high-def, Blu-Ray offered as part of an
Indicator box set from Region Two.