Film Noir #20 as GPS Noir Series Enters Second Year

 

Noir: Bullet to the Head, The Burglar, and Busting

BULLET TO THE HEAD (2012) --- The poster reads “Revenge Never Gets Old,” but do they really mean “Movies About Revenge Never Get Old”? --- because reprisal themes, unleashed as they are since abolishment of the Code, have indeed gotten old even as they serve audience need that never will change where getting even occupies much of people’s thought. Revenge is motive for much of what gets done, maybe not on terms expressed by Sylvester Stallone, but subtler and perhaps more deadly (how many jobs lost because someone by stealth did someone else in?). Stallone is an unrepentant hit man “set up” by unseen enemies who off his killing partner (they do a murder together within the film’s first minute). I will call Bullet to the Head noir because streets are mostly dark and Stallone dons modern dress rather than jungle fatigues or boxer trunks. He is so ripped as to not wear business attire comfortably. Him doing noir is like Gordon Scott or Steve Reeves having done noir, which they did not (Euro spies maybe, but dubbed to blur conviction). The title made me watch, plus fact Walter Hill directed. He is adept for story plus staging chases and fights, unfair to blame him if tale told here is confused by committee meddling. Hill likely was there mostly for money, action of blueprint sort having flooded markets by 2012 and boding to get worse with another decade, to which we have arrived, and yes, they did get worse. But how trying can 92 minutes be? Plenty, if you’re fed up with movies that would call themselves something like Bullet to the Head. Now me, with utter lack of critical standards, can watch these and enjoy, even pass off same as film noir, which, admit it, Bullet to the Head sort of is. Reminds me of zombie and Hostel and torture flix that some refuse to dignify as part of a horror genre, but sadly of course they are, and traditionalists can like it or find another sandbox. Bullet to the Head is everywhere that streaming happens. Watch it for three dollars and say penance after.

THE BURGLAR (1957) --- Very much to me like a European art noir … there were those in play by 1957 if fewer seen on US shore, so The Burglar would do for off beaten track (and by ’57, noir tracks were plenty beat). Helps when arty subjects have solid story spines to prop them through a feature’s length, as here David Goodis doing both source novel and screenplay. He was another who was good and sadly unrecognized for being good, per many who supplied kindling for noir. I’m shocked by how little money these talents got for even most memorable work, theirs hands-down most popular of American literature, thanks to twenty-five cent paperbacks in which to ply vigorous trade. Must be fun collecting these, as I’m told they sizzle possibly more than in fresh print. Looks like The Burglar was a first feature Paul Wendkos directed. After that, it was B’s, then a generation helming television. He tries and succeeds at making The Burglar something different. Much was shot outdoors, and at night, in not-overly-familiar locations like Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Narrative centered around people raised from childhood to commit crime is neat twist against type, Goodis giving it authenticity added to by Dan Duryea, maybe his high point, certainly in a lead, plus Jayne Mansfield for what amounts to a character part (and effective) before plastic stardom cast her out of chance like this again. Columbia released The Burglar after it was produced independently. They realized $305K for their pains. You wonder what expectation was had. Pictures like this even when they were good, which this certainly was, got nary a fair shake at theatres or drive-ins that used them pure-for-filler, if at all. Noir excavation has but recent given back The Burglar to whoever it will stimulate, more I'm guessing than would be captivated by mainstream, even major hit films, that came out also in 1957.

BUSTING (1974) --- Dissenter cop Elliot Gould wears wool caps (even to bed) and pops bubble gum as he and similarly maverick Robert Blake do 70’s vice squad proud, Busting another of profane looks at police work as practiced by those who fight crime no matter futility for doing so. It was by 1974 understood that municipalities were bought from top down by an underworld operating above ground and wide open. Rules are meant to be bent … were real police inspired by Gould/Blake, Freebie and the Bean, or Starsky/Hutch on TV? Busting has a shootout carried into a crowded market, clerks mowed down and the rest cringing in terror. Urban conditions were thought so far gone that we of rural placement figured a Busting for total verisimilitude, any trip to Gotham risk to life best not taken unless going there really was essential, like for heart transplant or buying a lab-snuck print of Goldfinger. Yes, this was New York, but is it still? Strip clubs, drug dens, all where life might end sudden just for blundering into line of fire. Fact films were shot on sites made metro look the more ferocious, but what fun these were, and consider historical documents they’ve become, thumbing broke nose at current Code restrictions. Busting is noir for hopelessness of fixing this town and all of ones like it. Seventies America, dudes! I revere pictures like Busting and find most of them end too soon. For me, they loop splendid with what we call Classic Era Noir, being sole way this style could go if it was to survive at all, down and outness told by changed times. Busting has signature muddy look precious to the seventies. Was life so like this? Don’t recall, though maybe I wore rose-color specs as others saw things clear. R-ratings add ginger to Busting and like, all too dirty to ever be dull. And here’s the thing … most are better even than last times I saw them, which is why I’m for hanging noir necktie and laurels in general on the lot. Raucous comedy and irreverence start-to-end see moderns deny these for noir, but should noir just be guys with fedoras and double-crosser dames, these belonging to seventies truth like horse-collars or doilies? Call Busting noir then and let’s open entry for more to deserve placement. Imagine how Noir Cities could swell population with such garnish, and note I didn't say garbage, which some would call Busting --- they just don't know art. I’ll take Busting and ilk all day and thank Kino for taking chain off it for Blu-Ray.

This finishes the B's for Noir, and here are Greenbriar links to earlier noir or features with noir elements: Bigger Than Life, Blues in the Night, Body and Soul, Border Incident, The Boston Strangler, and The Breaking Point.