Twin Celebrations

Feb.13, 1907
Los Angeles

An enormous masked ball for the city’s elite was staged on Mardi Gras at Kramer’s Studio and Dancing Academy, 1500 S. Figueroa.

Kramer's Hall, as it was informally known.

The Times, in a rare bylined article—by Katherine Thompson—gives
an exhaustive account of decorations and costumes. Rather than list all the women’s outfits, I’ll only comment on them: Spanish senoritas, flower girls, cowboys and a couple of ladies dressed as Chinese girls, which seems a peculiar choice given the attitude toward the Chinese in Los Angeles at the time.

One woman dressed as “My Lady Nicotine” her gown decorated with what The Times estimated, perhaps in exaggeration, as a thousand cigar bands. Several others were dressed as “Night.”

Costumes for the men included cowboys or vaqueros, a Spanish grandee, a French pastry cook and a cardinal.

The other celebration underway was the first anniversary of the Hotel Alexandria, which marked the occasion with a massive fireworks display.

“At 8 o’clock last night, several thousand dollars worth of fireworks were set off from the roof of the Alexandria,” The Times says. “One particularly attractive piece pictured the great lobby of the building. During the evening a Hungarian quartette furnished music.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

A Conductor Throws Caution to the Winds

Jan. 19, 1907
Los Angeles

Despite his ill health, Harley Hamilton drove himself to conduct a concert by the Los Angeles Symphony because he believed so much in bringing the music of Tchaikovsky (or in those days, Tschaikowsky) to the public. The concert at hand is West Coast premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

“Harley Hamilton, too ill to leave his house, is just finishing his arrangements for the work of the symphony orchestra,” The Times says of his labors on the concert series.

“During the entire past month the director has devoted the major part of every day, propped up with pillows on his couch, to the preparation of the splendid symphony programmes.

“The symphony orchestra is the darling of his heart—and in several instances it has come near costing him his life. Mr. Hamilton puts more money into the symphony work than he ever receives from it. He has carried the orchestra over the years of comparative failure, supported its burdens almost alone in time of public adversity and devoted his only hours of rest or recreation to a constant effort to better its personnel and its music.”

To make ends meet, Hamilton teaches music students, conducts a theater orchestra and even performs in pit orchestras, coming to the rescue when many players were banned from a performance of “Mignon.” (See “Oh, God, the Bassoon!”)

Of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, Hamilton said: “I am quite a Russian in my tastes. Tschaikowsky’s art is a fundamental bulwark upon which the splendid individual music of modern Russia stands. There is an Oriental richness about his writings—spiced fragrance in every phrase—violet skies, hot suns, tropic exuberance—qualities that are no more inherent to the bleak steppes than the thrilling tenderness of Italian melodies. These evidence the Asiatic strain that purples the lighter Russian blood—the dominating, compelling force of the ancient Tartars.”

Hamilton conducted the concert (which also included Goldmark’s “Sakuntala” or “Rustic Wedding” and Arthur Foote’s Serenade in E Major) at the Mason Opera House.

Because of a relapse of “nervous rheumatism,” he “was ordered to the strictest confinement by his physician. Throwing caution to the winds, however, he worked through a long rehearsal yesterday morning and yesterday afternoon, partly standing, partly sitting in his chair, directed the lengthy concert after which he returned home physically exhausted but [illegible] triumphant,” The Times says.

For a short time, the Los Angeles Symphony was in competition with the more recent Los Angeles Philharmonic, but it eventually disbanded. Hamilton died at his home, 1120 Arapahoe, in 1933 at the age of 72, having given birth to the Los Angeles Symphony and the Los Angeles Women’s Orchestra (later the California Women’s Symphony Orchestra).

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

No Christ in Christmas? Good Lord!

Dec. 14, 1907
Los Angeles

The madman who calls himself the superintendent of the Los Angeles schools has touched off an absolute firestorm of anger by ordering teachers not to mention Christ during Christmas pageants or other festivities.

“The town was agog with it yesterday,” The Times said. “It was the talk among both ministers and laymen of the 200 and more churches in Los Angeles.”

The order produced what a teacher called “a pagan celebration.” The Times said: “One little girl went home crying and said to her mamma: ‘We’re not to sing anything about Christ; there might be some little children there who do not believe in Christ, and so we’re not to sing anything about Him.’ ”

The superintendent’s order was not written, but made in a statement during the Dec. 5 meeting of school principals. An anonymous school official told the paper: “He said we were to make [Christmas] an occasion of good cheer; that the city schools are not Sunday schools. He did not say it in so many words, but the interpretation of myself and practically all the principals was that we were to see to it that no reference was made to Christ.”

“The supervisor of music in the city schools rose to her feet and stated that she did not know that such was the position of the managers of the schools; that she had been explaining ‘The Messiah’ to the children, not thinking it possible that there could be any objection to it, and she wished to know what she should do.

“To this the superintendent made reply: ‘Well, you must use nothing that will give offense to anyone.’ It was apparent all the way through what he meant to convey, and many principals, like myself were almost afraid to say anything yesterday.”

The Boyle Heights Men’s Meeting issued a resolution, calling the order “unnecessary, uncalled for and therefore a gratuitous insult to the faith of a great majority of the patrons of our schools” and urged the board of education to ensure that such an affront never occurred again.

The Times raged in a news story, describing the offense: “That the superintendent of the Christian schools of a Christian city in a Christian nation should unwarrantably forbid the teachers to make the Messiah a feature of the exercises celebrating His birthday—that the Christ significance must be left out of Christmas in exercises not a part of the legal school curriculum, but coming after the close of school—it was this that aroused the Christian people of Los Angeles to indignation.”

The superintendent replied, charging the newspaper with false accusations, explaining that there was feud between him and Gen. Otis of The Times. The superintendent, in editing a guide book for Los Angeles, had edited the general’s essay on “industrial freedom” so that it was suitable for print. Otis retorted that “no one should edit his material but himself.”

As for what was construed as an order, the educator said: “I did make a request, which from year to year has been made in the city and which, I understand, is made in practically every city of the land that the teachers should, in arranging their exercises remember that the public schools are secular schools and that only those forms of religious reference which give offense to no one have any place in them.” He also cited the California Constitution’s ban on the use of public money for a sectarian or denominational school.

The superintendent survived this crisis and lasted three more years at the Los Angeles schools. In 1918, he was inaugurated as head of the Los Angeles State Normal School, the beginnings of what became UCLA. Eventually a campus building was named for him.

And when Ernest Carroll Moore died in 1955, he was eulogized by The Times, which once called him “erratic and untruthful” with “long, dull, callous ears,” as a distinguished educator and scholar.

Moore resigned as UCLA’s provost in 1936 so that “I can spend my last days in teaching.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Dissecting 'Messiah'

Los Angeles
Dec. 13, 1907

What do we find in music criticism of another era? Let’s take a good look.

“ ‘The Messiah’ was presented at Shrine Auditorium by the Apollo Club last night, and the production, which moved expeditiously, apparently gave pleasure to an audience numbering nearly 3,000 persons.”

Not a good beginning for our anonymous critic. First, the title is wrong (it’s “Messiah”) and he or she dodges any complaints by stating up front that the audience had a good time. We’re clearly not going to get any first-rate writing or telling insights; at best, we can expect a workmanlike cataloging of who was there and what happened. And I’ll save you the trouble of wondering whether the critic mentions that “Messiah” is by Handel. The answer is no, so we’ll drop our expectations even further.

“The most delightful feature of the evening was the singing of Mrs. Genevieve Clark-Wilson, who proved fully her claim to rank among the great oratorio sopranos of the present day.

“From the first pure, deliberate superbly sustained note, casually filling all the reaches of even this immense audience chamber, Mrs. Wilson’s complete mastery of her specialized art was in full evidence. Seldom has any singer, either man or woman [illegible] here such real [illegible] or oratoric style, which is a species of lyric poetry, a constantly [illegible] tranquility.”

“A large woman, she has a large voice, a voice conveying a most restful sense of reserve power and ample breadth and volume. She sings at all times with the most delightful ease and utterly without the vocal and physical rigidity which is deemed a necessary part of dramatic expression by too many of today’s recital stars. Her interpretations of the [illegible] airs and recitatives were [illegible] full of meaning and apparently as near classic tradition as she could bring her director’s tempo.

“Further hearing of Mrs. Wilson would be a [illegible] event indeed.”

Translation (minus all the padding): She’s a big woman with a huge voice who can fill a barn like Shrine Auditorium, which seats 3,000, without amplification. That’s a serious instrument, folks. And she mostly followed the conductor but not always.

I’ve never heard of Wilson so let’s see what Proquest says about her. Hm. Not much. Apparently she was based in Chicago and was a fairly prominent soloist in liturgical music. I’m a bit curious about “From the first pure, deliberate superbly sustained note” because the soprano’s initial number is “There Were Shepherds.” Ah well.

But this is interesting, and perhaps the most telling item in the entire review:

“The Messiah” has become hackneyed in Los Angeles. Great as the work is [now here would be a fine place to mention that it was by Handel, but alas, no], reverenced as it is by hundreds of intelligent [illegible] there is no [illegible] that statement. It has been a yearly event of late and has even been vulgarized by the most blatant [illegible]. It has not always been well sung. So many things have happened to it, in fact, that it is to be hoped that it is shelved at least for a [illegible] term and that opportunity will be given for the hearing of new works.”

This would have been a good opportunity to note that although “Messiah” is usually done around Christmas, what we frequently hear is a truncated version and that the entire work deals with much more of Christ’s life (take “Worthy Is the Lamb,” for example). This distinction is going to be lost on our local critic.

“The Apollo Club, as it stood last night, contained but a few more than 100 persons—a sufficient number, of course, had all the units been of reliable powers. The body of tone as a whole was a pleasing musical quality but the climaxes lacked in vigor and life. The production was not a satisfying one.

“The cold critical discussion of an organization whose members sing for music’s sake, and not for hire, is always a hard and dubious matter. Yet while [illegible] the spirit of the Apollo Club members, who certainly are to be [illegible] for their devotion to the art-cause, candor compels the statement that the organization appears to have lost many of its old-time supports during the past year, and is really in need of sound, new timber to complete and solidify its melodious fabric.”

Translation: This is a community chorus so I don’t want upset anyone by being too hard on it. Some of the singers are iffy.

“Mr. [Eugene] Davis [presumably the conductor, although we are not told—ah, yes, he is] demonstrated one talent last night which calls for comment: It was the unvarying precision of his orchestral beat, certainly a delight to the 30 or 40 players grouped in front of the singers. Hitherto our oratorio conductors, or the most of them at least, have indulged in fanciful gyrations, which, while perhaps patent to the well-drilled singers, threw the [illegible] ranks into dreadful confusion and eventual panic.

“His interpretations were much slower than the metronome tempo indicated on the generally accepted scores of the work—save in one exceptional instance, the ‘Rejoice Greatly,’ whose dripping measures were rushed in one place almost to the danger limit.”

This raises an interesting question: What did performers do in the era before ubiquitous reference recordings? Apparently our critic, at least, could read music and had access to some copy of “Messiah.” I don’t happen to recall tempo markings in scores of “Messiah,” but I’m far from an expert and I don’t have a copy handy to check. “Dripping measures” in “Rejoice Greatly”? Yes, that’s what he or she wrote.

“The other three soloists, Miss [Estelle Catherine] Heartt, Mr. [Charles A.] Bowes and Mr. [Abraham] Miller, are locally well known and their work is such a familiar quantity that it does not call for extended comment. Mr. Miller’s unusually finished style and smooth delivery were again in evidence. Miss Heartt was at times covered by the orchestra and at other times sharped a little but in the main sang with much taste and intelligent interpretation. Mr. Bowes is more of a baritone than a bass but in one air succeeded in impressing with bass virility and resonance of voice.”

Translation: The critic takes a pass on saying anything about the other soloists. What’s the bass air in question in the preceding paragraph? We don’t get to find out.

“The car service was poor and the building was cold and draughty. But heaters will be installed today—and Mr. Behvmer vows that Calve’s concert will be afforded at least three-minute attention by the Huntington lines.”

And there you have it, “Messiah” in the big, cold, drafty Shrine Auditorium, as it was reviewed in 1907. There’s much fodder here for the question of what purpose is served by music reviews—at least those of this kind. And it is worth noting that even 99 years ago, some people were tired of hearing Handel’s most popular oratorio. But I won’t get into any of that here. I’ll just remember what The Times’ Martin Bernheimer once told me: “I know that my redeemer liveth.”

Click here for a photo of the 1920 Shrine Auditorium fire.

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Revolutionary Defense Fund

Nov. 13, 1907
Los Angeles

An uproarious meeting was held last night at Simpson Auditorium to raise money for the four Mexican revolutionaries being held in the Los Angeles County Jail. The hall was packed with “revolutionists, Socialists, labor unionites, atheists and others of that ilk,” The Times said, noting: “A wild-eyed anarchist with a smoking bomb in his hand was the only thing needed.” “The audience was composed mainly of Mexicans and Spanish-Americans, but not of the better class,” The Times said.

A red flag was hoisted above the Stars and Stripes and red crepe paper was strung throughout the hall, while music was provided by a Mexican orchestra of boys and girls “who were supposed to represent the purity of the cause,” The Times said. Mexican women pelted defense attorney Job Harriman with flowers when he began his address.

In fiery oratory, Antonio Rodriguez, who spoke in Spanish, Harriman and fellow defense attorney A.R. Holston attacked the Mexican government, U.S. officials and the police, The Times said. A speaker read a letter from Antonio Villareal, one of the imprisoned revolutionaries, “filled with abuse of the Mexican government.”

Holston said: “I am a Socialist and a red abolitionist. We will be the saviors of mankind. America is following suit to Russia in its oppression and system of espial. Our officials have gone to school to the Czar of Russia. Our jails have been filled with Mexicans. Let our officials draw their pay from Mexico. We would not accept Mexican currency at one time. Now we seem glad to get it. It is probably better than Roosevelt currency.”

The Times said that the meeting “closed in an uproar. The ignorant Mexicans went out of the auditorium filled with sentiments of anarchy. They had been told that this country was the slave of Mexico. They were given to understand that revolution was praiseworthy and that bloodshed was necessary in such a righteous cause.... The church was openly assailed and the ministers of the Gospel were laughed at as cowards.”

The meeting raised $59 ($1,210.89 USD 2005).

To be continued.

Here’s a link to imprisoned revolutionary L. Gutierrez de Lara’s “The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Oh, God, That Bassoon!

Oct. 29, 1907
Los Angeles

Given The Times’ view of unions, it’s a little difficult to determine precisely what went wrong with a production of Ambroise Thomas’ “Mignon” at the Auditorium, but it went very wrong indeed because of a labor dispute.

The traveling company included orchestral players from Italy who had, according to The Times, joined the musicians union. However local union officials, citing labor leaders in St. Louis, appeared shortly before the evening’s performance and insisted that the musicians be thrown out of the union and therefore unable to perform.

Whatever the dispute involved, conductor Agide Jacchia was forced to preside over an orchestra of local players that was almost entirely unrehearsed.

“At intervals during the score, Jacchia would shudder as if someone had stabbed him and an expression of anguish would come into his face,” The Times said. “He would let his baton fall against the music rest and give some fellow in the orchestra a look of agonized reproach.

“But the union musicians didn’t care. They fiddled and tooted on at so much an hour—secure in the knowledge that the union doesn’t care whether they can play or not. In the intervals, they picked their noses and laughed and talked; made fun of the chorus girls and signaled to persons in the audience.”

After the first act, Jacchia was almost inconsolable, The Times said. As soon as he began to calm down, he would suddenly shriek: “Oh God! That awful contrabassoon!”

“His friends would grab him and soothe him down for a while. Then the recollection of the flute or the clarinet or something would strike him. He would start back as a man mortally wounded and murmur in the accents of a man dying a hard death: ‘Oh, God, the bassoon.’ ”

Bonus fact: Jacchia’s resignation on the night of the 1926 season finale gave Arthur Fiedler his opportunity to conduct the Boston Pops. History, alas, does not record whether a bassoonist was involved.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Disharmony

Sept. 26, 1907
Long Beach

Marco Vessella, conductor of Long Beach’s Royal Italian Band, has had nothing but trouble with Special Officer W.D. Cason after firing him from his job as ticket taker.

On one September evening, Vessella and a young lady were waiting for a streetcar when Cason taunted him, calling him “spaghetti face” and “a longhaired dago.”

Vessella was an extremely popular and respected musician in Southern California. The Times said: “Vessella clings to no past traditions, is a follower of no particular school and is not an exclusive nationalist. He plays with equal facility representative compositions of French, German, Italian, English and the best American composers.

“In addition, he is a clever composer, and each month sees something added to his already excellent list. His “Independent” march, intermezzos “Teasing Heart” and “Dulgura,” his “Ebell” minuet and his latest symphonic interlude “Midsummer,” all created since his arrival in Southern California, are not only seaside popularities but are brilliant studies in harmony and musical conception.”

Witnesses said Vessella fired Cason because he was flirting with the conductor’s women friends. On the night of Sept. 10, 1907, Cason ran into Vessella and a young woman named Mabel Wilson at the Huntington station and began insulting the maestro. Asked in court to explain his comments, Cason merely shrugged.

Cason was convicted and fined $15 ($307.85 USD 2005), but the animosity between the men wasn’t over. In October, Cason accused Vessella of challenging him to a fight.

“The case itself was a joke,” The Times said. “It was a sequel to the piteous complaint made by the Italian bandmaster to the Los Angeles [note: Long Beach] police against the man who insulted his feelings by calling him ‘a monkey-faced dago.’ ”

The jury deadlocked and the case was dismissed. Vessella left Southern California the next year.

He did leave behind a recording of the “Pasadena March” and a number of other recordings.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

El Grito

Sept. 17, 1907
Los Angeles

Mexican Independence Day was celebrated in a grand program sponsored by the Club Porfiro Diaz of Los Angeles at Turner Hall, 325 S. Main (demolished 1951), which was decorated with American and Mexican flags.

“The exercises were begun with the singing of the national hymn of Mexico,” The Times said. “A thousand voices took up the music. Hon R.J. Dominguez, the president of the club, offered a prayer for the safety of Mexico and the happiness of its people. A brief history of Mexico’s fight for independence was given by Francisco Estudillo, secretary of the club, and an address by Guillemeo (could that be Guillermo?) Dominguez followed.”

Mayor Harper said: “Under the American flag, there lives a happy people as loving and patriotic as our own, the sons and daughters of our sunny sister republic.”

The speeches were followed by music and dancing. Guitarists played “La Paloma,” as the Bach sisters danced. “Two young girls glided gracefully. Their hair hung in masses about their shoulders, their arms were bare and their skirts, cut to the knee, sparkled like polished steel. Slowly, they moved, keeping time to the music and then as a burst of applause greeted them, they swung lightly into the graceful movements of the Manzanillo. The castanets clashed loudly, the music rose, there was a glimpse of whirling skirts, the swirl of jet-black hair and then with a crash the music stopped.”

After a performance of “La Golondrina,” the evening concluded with the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Brian De Palma's 'The Black Dahlia'

“The Black Dahlia,” directed by Brian De Palma, screenplay by Josh Friedman based on the novel by James Ellroy. Starring Josh Hartnett (Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert), Aaron Eckhart (Leeland “Lee” Blanchard), Scarlett Johansson (Kay Lake), Hillary Swank (Madeleine Linscott) and Mia Kirshner (Elizabeth Short). Universal Pictures.

(Contains spoilers. You have been warned)

While not quite the “Heaven’s Gate” of film noir, “The Black Dahlia” is a long (121 minutes), bloated, confusing, self-important, self-consciously artsy movie undermined by miscasting, absurd plot turns, naive symbolism, an utter disdain for history and laughable overacting that make Robert Towne’s ponderous, plodding “Chinatown” sequel, “Two Jakes” (1990), look like a taut thriller. After what may be a strong opening weekend thanks to heavy marketing, interest should plummet except among the most ardent fans of De Palma, Ellroy and the Dahlia murder.

As regular blog readers will know, “The Black Dahlia” is based on Ellroy’s 1987 novel, which in turn is distantly related to the unsolved 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, an unemployed 22-year-old cashier and waitress whose gruesomely mutilated body was posed in a vacant lot just off Crenshaw in the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue between Coliseum and 39th Street.

I last read Ellroy’s novel in 1996 and have no desire to renew my acquaintance with it, but if my recollections are correct, Friedman and De Palma have stayed fairly close to the plot, which is one of the movie’s worst flaws. Recall, for example, that director Curtis Hanson and screenwriter Brian Helgeland radically altered, restructured and streamlined “L.A. Confidential” in filming the movie. Granted, the story arc of “L.A. Confidential” wilts a bit more with each viewing, but it’s quite forceful the first time.

The most marked difference between “Dahlia” and other classics of the more recent genre is that although “L.A. Confidential” is firmly planted in the 1950s and “Chinatown” takes place in the 1930s, De Palma’s film has shallow roots “once upon a time in Los Angeles.”


Clearly, a movie nominally set in 1943-47 in which the lead characters attend a silent movie (above, “The Man Who Laughs, ” 1928--note that the characters are sitting in the balcony, which was reserved for blacks back in the ugly days of segregation. And look at the man right behind Harnett. He's smoking. In a theater?? Oops!) has nothing but contempt for the past, which is reflected in a thousand ways, from male actors’ scruffy haircuts (see above) and inability to wear hats (at right) properly to a laughable lesbian nightclub scene (below) featuring K.D. Lang in top hat and tails singing “Love for Sale,” which rather than depicting the classic film noir era is most evocative of “Bugsy Malone,” a far more accurate film. Note to Elisabeth Fry, personal hairstylist for Eckhart: Men's haircuts in the 1940s look like Red Manley's, above. I mean really!





One can find fatal flaws in virtually every area of this movie with little effort—in fact the most difficult task in critiquing the film is remembering everything that’s wrong with it.

First, there’s the dialogue: “She looks like that dead girl! How sick are you?”—not quite “She’s my sister and my daughter,” is it? Then there’s miscasting (at 31, Kirshner is much too old to play the 22-year-old Black Dahlia), opulent production design by Dante Ferretti (at right, police officers lived like this on LAPD pay? Who knew?), music (Mark Isham in the entirely predictable “cue mournful trumpet” genre), odd costuming—Friday casual for the men, fall collection for the women—(Jenny Beavan), down to the crowd scenes, which are busy to the point of distraction. And I wish I had the cigarette holder franchise on this film. I would be a rich man.

Even special effects are misused, with an earthquake that serves no purpose except to underline an obvious plot turn. Granted, the overly complex story is almost impossible to follow, but in this instance, De Palma must assume the audience has an IQ of about 50. And unlike the shocking and painfully realistic nose-slitting scene in “Chinatown,” the far worse violence inflicted on the Black Dahlia is amusingly fake. If De Palma was hoping to make a slasher flick, he failed badly.

Nor does Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography escape a rap on the knuckles for a ridiculous lesbian stag film (presumably made at a cost surpassing the combined budgets of all blue movies produced from the 1920s to the 1950s), and a self-conscious and overly elaborate shot in which partners Blanchard (Eckhart) and Bleichert (Hartnett) engage in a shootout, followed by the camera slowly rising up floor by floor of an entire apartment building, proceeding to a befuddling shot of the building’s roof before it at last discovers the Black Dahlia’s body in a vacant lot in the adjoining block. As visual storytelling, this is a grandiose and miserable failure. It reminds me of Leni Riefenstahl’s famous rising shot in “Triumph of the Will,” except that one works and this one doesn’t.

And then there’s Fiona Shaw, (below) who chews so much scenery that she must have been rushed to an oral surgeon to have the splinters removed.



For that matter—and perhaps this is what makes the heart


of the film beat so faintly—there is very little of the Black Dahlia in “The Black Dahlia,” who only surfaces far into the picture.

In fact, the first 30 or 40 minutes are devoted to boxing matches between the two detectives, nicknamed “Fire” and “Ice” from the Symbolism 101 school of writing. (I know it’s in the book, but that’s no excuse).

The bouts lead up to a prizefight intended to win support for an LAPD bond measure (yawn). There’s an awful lot of 10-ounce gloves, blood and a couple of front teeth thrown around by Blanchard and Bleichert as they fight it out, then traverse L.A. with Lake (Johansson), who is nominally Blanchard’s girlfriend but has much more interest in Bleichert. In theory, a torrid triangle might juice up the plot, but “Dahlia” plays this interest as flat as a day-old Pepsi.

Speaking of Symbolism 101, we have Kay Lake, all in white with peroxide hair and Madeleine Linscott (Swank) entirely in black. Get it?




It’s only after all this boxing and De Palma’s version of the Zoot Suit riots (let’s get this straight: the cops are beating up sailors during World War II to protect Mexicans?) that the film discovers the Black Dahlia’s body in that artsy shot. For the record, the body, rather than horrifying, looks laughably fake and what can I say about a crow landing at the crime scene and being chased away except I know someone who flunked Symbolism 101.

So where is the Black Dahlia in this confusing mess? She exists entirely on film. Of course in real life, Elizabeth Short never got a screen test or even appeared in a school play, but De Palma gives her one and Kirshner, trying her best at the impossible task of acting 22, makes it as pitiful as possible (Costuming note: A screen test in which the actress has big runs in her nylons?) with an intentionally miserable reading of Vivian Leigh’s famous monologue from “Gone With the Wind.”




The handling of the crime scene? Ridiculous even by Hollywood’s lax standards (note to anyone who ever wants to be a homicide detective: No smoking!). Vintage black-and-white police cars swarming the streets (bonus fact: there isn’t a single black-and-white in the original pictures. Check if you don't believe me) and detectives bellowing instructions like some shark-jumping 1970s cop show that any good investigator would already know. Ditto the morgue.

Anybody who knows anything about investigative procedures will laugh themselves sick at this movie. I’m especially thinking of one of the more surreal scenes in which Bleichert attempts to question a young woman (Rose McGowan) who is wearing an Egyptian/Babylonian costume that is only explained at the end of the scene—not that anyone cares by that point.

Running a close second is the interrogation of a juvenile suspect (in the book, her name is Linda Martin). In reality, Lynne Martin had to be questioned by juvenile officers because she was underage, but this becomes another victim of De Palma’s contempt for the past.

From this point, the movie lurches from one absurdity to another. Blanchard dies while fighting a tall, skinny man with steel-rim glasses who looks like James Ellroy’s double (Bill Finley) and they plunge over the railing of a steep staircase, falling several floors. What to do with the bodies? Well this is De Palma, so Bleichert watches as his alleged friend/partner is cremated in the basement incinerator. Think the department might start asking rude questions about what happened to him? And how about Lake?




Then there’s the contrasting love/sex scenes, and it’s obvious De Palma hasn’t a clue how to stage either one. The sex scene, between Harnett and Johansson, occurs in the dining room, when, overcome with passion, Bleichert rips away the tablecloth, sending dishes everywhere, and has his way with Lake. Isham’s score is lushly romantic, an oddly contrasting choice of music, and amour like this is sure tough on the Havilland china and the Baccarat crystal.



The love scene, between Swank and Harnett (above, in a Friday-casual day in the Homicide Division), is just as amusing with Bleichert and Linscott having a little pillow talk while she’s wearing nothing but huge pearl earrings and a long matching necklace with pearls the size of small onions, ensuring, I would imagine, a rather bumpy ride.

And about those crazy—and I mean crazy—Linscotts. (At right, Swank and John Kavanagh grieve over the loss of a Ming vase). Bleichert knows exactly how to make rich people confess to murder: Use their valuable antiques for target practice. The last time I checked, police revolvers hold six rounds, so unless Bleichert was planning to fight off one of them as he reloaded I can’t imagine what he thought he would do after his sixth question. Then again, not everybody can send a crystal chandelier crashing to the floor with one shot—some of us need two. (If J.J. Gittes had taken a few potshots at Noah Cross’ art collection “Chinatown” would have been a much different film).







And while you're at it, Bucky, take out a couple of those clown paintings, please.

Did I mention Fiona Shaw? Just keep an eye on her.

My prediction? After this movie, the Black Dahlia will be radioactive at the box office for years.

(I just realized something. With that haircut, Josh Harnett looks like Shemp Howard).

Larry Harnisch
Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

ps: Nathan says:

Nice work!

I've tried to post a comment, but Blogger won't let me (says I have an invalid password, and it won't let me start a new account, oh well). My comment would have read as such --

If you want to get nitpicky about historical accuracy...assuming someone does...please allow me to continue the conversation.

In 1947, the featured Rosslyn Hotel had two neon blade signs, not one. Of course spending the money on the CGI to add the other blade would be too much to ask, as long as I wasn't the one asking it.

And in the alley where Our Heroes beat up GIs, there's a seven-digit phone number on a wall advertisement, ie, 555-4689 or somesuch. I trust I don't have to tell readers here how wrong that is.

The switch from yellow 45 plates with the 46 sticker to 47 black plates is abrupt, and works in theory, but I'd have to see the picture again to make certain it was done correctly. Of course not everyone in Los Angeles switched to the black plate in the first weeks of January.

I will say this, if there's ANY reason to see this movie, it's Fiona Shaw. She will go down as the great guilty pleasure, like watching Mantan Moreland get all googly-eyed in one of his 40s "spook" pictures.


thanks again,

Nathan

The Bucket of Blood

Aug. 12-13, 1907
Los Angeles

Despite the name Bismarck Cafe, police call the saloon at Main and Winston Streets the Bucket of Blood because it’s a continual source of crime and violence.

It is a place, The Times says, “of drunken debauchery among girls of tender ages, painted women and men. Into this immoral pesthole, young girls are enticed nightly to drink and listen to a band concert. Although the police make arrests in this dive every night, it is allowed to run unmolested.”


The Bismarck’s bill of fare is limited: beans, sandwiches and liquor. There is a women’s entrance in the alley off Winston that leads to one section of the cafe. Another section features the bar, along with some tables “where men lounge around to meet some young girl or woman,” The Times says, and between the two is the bandstand.

There’s sawdust on the floor, and “with an ordinary garden rake, the filth is cleaned out once a day,” The Times says.

Soon, a fight broke out between two men over who was going to buy a drink for a woman. Waiters pulled the men apart, but they moved to another part of the saloon and started fighting again. One of them, J.A. Salas, pulled a gun. Police discovered that Salas and his partner Edward Wilson, had stolen the pistol in a burglary at the Hotel Marlowe, 5th Street and Main, earlier that night.

Before police could take Salas away, another fight broke out in which a man threw a beer glass across the table and hit another man above the eye. The victim lunged at his assailant and overturned the table trying to get at him.

Still another fight broke out between two women, their cries muffled by the music from the bandstand.

The next night, it was the same. “A plate of beans was placed on the table in front of a customer and then any kind of drink could be purchased.... The cafe was filled during the early part of the evening. The usual number of fights took place and several girls were seen drinking at the tables.”

A woman who is down on her luck gets her meals and drinks from cafe owner John Edwards in return for procuring young women customers.

“Late Saturday night there were four girls, whose dresses were above their shoe tops, in the beer hall drinking,” The Times says of the female customers procured by the unidentified woman. “Two men eagerly sought their acquaintance. They were introduced. Soon all five were seated at a table. One of the young girls refused to drink, saying that she had never tasted beer. After coaxing, she sipped at the beer occasionally. For nearly an hour, the five were seated at the table. When they left, the young girls were unsteady on their feet. The two men accompanied them.”

In the last 10 days, three female customers under the age of 18 had been taken to the hospital for treatment. One claimed she had been drugged by a young man, the other two had passed out.

“I am getting tired of this life,” said the procuress. “For several weeks I have been out of work and have lived at the Bucket of Blood. If you stand in with the manager down here you can get all you want to eat and drink. They will feed you if you get a bunch coming down with you every night.”

The day after the Times story appeared, the cafe was a temple of propriety. “A man was stationed at the ‘ladies entrance’ and no person of questionable age was admitted. The waiters were instructed to keep customers as quiet as possible. In several selections rendered by the band there were strains of sacred music. The plain words of John Edwards were: ‘I am taking no chances.’ ”

The Times tells a compelling tale, but neglects to mention a key fact: The Bismarck is a stronghold of organized labor, while the paper is staunchly anti-union. It isn’t until the next year, when Edwards was put under a boycott for firing a union bartender, that The Times began portraying him as a fearless opponent of organized labor.

“For 20 years I was a member of the bricklayers union,” Edwards says. “But I will not stand for the manner in which they are trying to run things now. When I was a union man we tried to get good men into our ranks. My idea of the proper way to run a union is to make it attractive so that men will want to join. This idea that, because a man does not see fit to join a union, he cannot work, won’t go with me. It’s not square, and I, for one, don’t propose to stand for it.”

The Police Commission closed the Bismarck in June 1908. The address, 426 S. Main St., is currently occupied by the Blossom Restaurant.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

The Angry Swarm

Aug. 1, 1907
Los Angeles

A mass of bees “wandering in from the country” swirled along Broadway, forcing dainty young women and the toughest police officer to seek cover in a vain attempt to avoid being stung.

“Whether attracted to the neighborhood by the bevy of pretty girls who happened to be there or by the flowered hats on display in the show windows is not known,” The Times said.

The bees appeared around 6^th Street and South Broadway, where women dropped their packages and hiked their skirts to run for safety. The sight of all those women’s stockings “would have caused a barber’s pole to blush,” The Times said.

A patrolman came to investigate the ruckus and was stung. “From the entrance to Mercantile Place to the car tracks on Broadway the bees covered the pavement,” The Times said.

Fanciful or not, the newspaper reported that one of the bees became enchanted with a Victrola in a music shop playing “Honey, I’ll Sure Be Yours” and came off second best with the phonograph.

After about an hour, the bees drifted up Broadway. At 3^rd Street, a frightened woman deserted her flower stand, and at 2^nd Street, the merchants discussed whether to call the Fire Department. But before firefighters could respond, the bees moved on toward Buena Vista (later renamed as a continuation of North Broadway).

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Can This Be the Fourth of July?

July 4, 1907
Los Angeles

And how does Los Angeles celebrate Independence Day? With cricket matches and bagpipe contests.


“The Times said: Oratory and music are to replace firewater and fireworks in this year’s celebration of Independence Day. The official program as arranged by the local celebration committee was announced last night.

“Chairman Humphreys says it is arranged so as to present a treat for lovers of music; it consists chiefly of band concerts in different parks and playgrounds, with some speaking, but no fireworks.”

Apparently, there was quite a cricket match between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, as The Times said: “Then came the greatest partnership Southern California has witnessed in first-class cricket for many a long day.”

A sample of The Times’ cricket reportage: “Nash now came in, but only to see Sommerville’s off stump knocked clean out of the ground by Hunt, the ball coming back fast. The score sheet at this time showed 4 overs, no runs, 2 wickets and 4 maidens. The rot was temporarily stopped by Nash and Morris, the former hitting Hunt to square leg for 3 and the latter sent Mather to long leg for 4. In the ninth over, Nash, in hitting out to a straight one from Hunt, misjudged the pace and was bowled.”

There were a few informal fireworks displays: Ah Sing was arrested for setting off firecrackers as he walked along Broadway. He told police he didn’t understand officers’ warnings to stop. Five more men were arrested for setting off firecrackers on Main Street, three of whom were celebrating after midnight.

And there you have it: an old-fashioned Fourth of July.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Soothing Music

June 19, 1907
Los Angeles

What shall we do with the insane? Don’t give them drugs... give them music! (Well, some music).

Dr. E.C. Dent of the hospital for women on Ward’s Island in New York says: “I firmly believe in the curative power of music for insane patients and those who suffer from nervous diseases, but I do not say that music in itself is a cure. It is true that music is now a regular part of the treatment in this hospital systematically employed in reaching and stimulating the brain.”

The musical selections are important, Dent says, because “popular airs ... were useless or injurious in the case of a patient accustomed to the classics while the classics would be entirely without effect on the brain of an uneducated person.”

For simple mania, Dent says, slow, dreamy music is best while someone with melancholia is best treated with a stirring air. Dent’s assistant Miss Vescelius has classified music much like drugs: stimulants, sedatives, bromides, narcotics and tonics.

Dent uses Franz’s Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 as a stimulant (predating Warner Bros.’ cartoons by several decades), and Felix Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song” as a sedative. Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” is a narcotic and marches and bright waltzes are considered as tonics.

“One day a dear friend mentally and physically at the lowest ebb lay in a half-fainting condition on a lounge as I sat at the piano, singing. Through a sudden impulse, I broke into the old gem ‘She Touched the Hem of His Garment,’ knowing it to be a favorite of the invalid. When I had finished she was standing by my side, with bright eyes and cheeks flushed. ‘I am revived; I am well,’ she said as she grasped me. And it was true that from that hour she improved and rapidly recovered.”

“The time will come when discordant tones in the sick room will be recognized as a crime, just as heinous as giving the sick adulterated drugs or impure food,” Vescelius said.

Although Dent doesn’t give an example of bromides, one might easily suggest, for starters, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” and Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” I wonder what they would have thought of Steve Reich’s “Come Out.”

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

From the recording horn

May 25, 1907
Los Angeles

Sold on the installment plan, $1 a week with the purchase of six records at 60 cents each, the Victor Talking Machines offered performances by Caruso, Melba and Scotti, as well as John Philip Sousa’s and Arthur Pryor’s bands. Other recording artists included Schumann-Heink, Pol Plancon and Marcella Sembrich.

To sell the Victor machines, which ranged from $10 to $100 ($205.24 to $2,052.36 USD 2005), dealers in Los Angeles staged weekly concerts of new recordings. The George J. Birkel Co., 345 S. Spring St., which also sold Steinways and the Cecilian Piano Player, an external player piano device, said: “Music in the home is a necessity, not a luxury. Music has a refining influence which nothing else can give. The Victor Talking Machine brings every kind of music into your home—from Grand Opera to Ragtime.”

Later releases for 1907 included selections by the Victor Orchestra, augmented with musicians from the New York Philharmonic and the Met.
Nor did Victor neglect the demand for comic records, offering a selection of Cal Stewart’s “Uncle Josh” stories.

Although some discs sold for as little as 50 cents, some were as high as $5 ($102.62 USD 2005). Later in the year, dealers offered the $200 Victrola, in which the machine was enclosed in a cabinet with a hinged lid, eliminating the external horn.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Paul Schrader's 1971 Notes on Film Noir

Paul Schrader’s 1971 essay “Notes on Film Noir” in all its sappy, naive glory, with typos by me.  

In 1946, French critics, seeing the American films they had missed during the war, noticed the new mood of cynicism, pessimism and darkness which had crept into the American cinema. The darkening stain was most evident in routine crime thrillers, but was also apparent in prestigious melodramas.

The French cineastes soon realized they had seen only the tip of the iceberg: As the years went by, Hollywood lighting grew darker, characters more corrupt, themes more fatalistic and the tone more hopeless. By 1949, American movies were in the throes of their deepest and most creative funk. Never before had films dared to take such a harsh, uncomplimentary look at American life, and they would not dare to do so again for twenty years.

Hollywood’s film noir has recently bgecome the subject of renewed interest among moviegoers and critics. The fascination film noir holds for today’s young filmgoers and film students refelcts recent trends in American cinema: American movies are again taking a look at the underside of the American character, but comapred to such relentlessly cynical films noir as Kiss Me Deadly or Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, the new self-hate cinema of Easy Rider and Medium Cool seems naive and romanntic. As the current political mood hardens, filmgoes and filmmakers will find the film noir fo the late Forties increasingly attractive. The Forties may be the Seventies what the Thirdtie were to the sixties.

Film noir is equally interesting to critics. It offers writers a cache of excelent , little=known films (film noir is oddly both one of Hollywood’s best periods and least known), and gives auteur-weary critics an opportunity to aply themselvse to the newer questions of classification and transdirectorial style. After all, what is film noir?

Film noir is not a genre (as Raymond Durgnat has helpfully pointed out over the objections of Higham and Greenberg’s Hollywood in the Forties). It is not defined, as are the western and gangster gnres, by conventions of setting and fonclifct, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film “noir” as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white.

Film noir is also a specific period of film history, like German Expressionism or the French New Wave. In general, film noir refers to those Hollywood films of the Forties and early Fifties which portrayed the world of dark, slick city streets, crime and corruption.

Film noir is an extremely unwieldy period. It hars back to many prefious periods: Warners’ Thirties ganster filsm, the French “poetic realism” of Carne and Duvivier, Sternbergian melodrama and fatehrst back, German Expressionist crime films (Lang’s Maubse cycle). Film noir can stretch at its outer limits from the Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958) and most every dramatic Hollywood film from 1941 to 1953 contains some noir elements. There are also foreign offshoots of film noirs such as The Third Man, Breathless adn Le Doulos.

Almost every critic has his own definition of film noir and personal list of film titles and dates to back it up. Personal and descriptive definitions, however, can get a bit sticky. A film of urban night life is not necesarsarily a film noir, and a film moir need not necessarily concern crime and corruption. Since film noir is defined by tone rather than genre, it is almost impossible to argue one critic’s description definition against another’s How many noir elements does it take to make a film noir noir?

Rather than haggle definitions, I would rather attempt to reduce film noir to its primary colors (all shades of black) those cultureal and stylistic elements to which any definition must return.

At the risk of sounding like Arthur Knight, I would sugest that there were four conditions in Hollywood in the Forties which brought about film noir. (The danger of Knight’s Livlieset Art methoid is taht it makes film history less a matter of structural analysis and more a case of artistic and social forces magically interacting and coalescing). Each of the following four catalytic elements, however, can define the film noir, the distinctly noir tonality draws from each of these elements.

War and postwar disillusionment.  The acute downer which hit the U.S. after the Second World War was, in fact, a delayed reaction to the Thirties. Allthrough the Depression, movies were needed to keep oeple’s spirits up, and for the most part, they did. The crime films of this period were Horatio Algerish and socially conscious. Toward the end of the Thirties, a darker crime film began to appear (You Only Live Once, the Roaring Twenties0 and, were it not for the War, film noir would have been at full steam by the early Forties.

The need to produce Allied propaganda abroad and promote patriotism at home blunted the fledling moves toward a dark cinema and the film noir thrashed about in the studio system, not quite able to come into full prominence. During the War the first uniquely film noir appeard: The Maltest Falcon, the Glass Key, This Gun for Hire, Laura, but these films lacked the distinctly noir bite the end of the war would bring.

As soon as the War was over, however, American films became markedly more sardonic—and there was a boom in the crime film. For fifteen years the pressures agains American’s amelioristic cinema had been building up and given the freedom, audiences and artists were not eager to take a less otpimsitic view of things. The disillusionment many soldiers small businessmen and houseive/factory employees felt in returning to a peacetime economy was directly mirrored in the sordidness of the urgan crime film.

This imemdiate postwar disillusionment was directly demonstrated in films like Cornered, the Blue Dahlia, Dead Reckoning and Ride the pink Horse, in which a serivdeman returns from the war to find his sweetheard unfaithful or daed, or his business partner cheating him, or the whole society something less than worth fighting for. The war continues, but not the antagonism turns with a new viciousness toward the American society itself.

postwar realism: Shortly after the War every film-producing country had a resurgence of realism. In American it first took the form of fiolms by such producers as Louise de Rochemont (House in 92nd Street, Call Northside 777) and Mark Hellinger (The Killers, Brute Force) and directors like Henry Hathaway and Jules Dassin. “Every scene was filmed on the actual location depicted,” the 1947 de Rocemont-Hjathaway Kiss of Death produly procalimed. Even after de Rochemont’s particular “Maart of Time” authenticity fell from vogue, realistic exteriors remained a permanent fixture of film noir.

The realistic movement also suited America’s postwar mood; the public’s desire for a more honest and harsh view of American would not be satisfied by the same studio streets they had been watching for a dozen years. The postwar realstic trend succeeded in beraking film noir away from the domain of the high-class melodrama, placing it where it more properly belonged, in the streets with everyday people. In retrospect, the pre de-Rochemont film noir looks definitely tamer than the postwar realistic films. The studio look of films like The Big Sleep and The Mask of Dimitrios blunts their sting, making them seem more polite and conventional in contrast to their later, mor realistic counterparts.

The German Influence. Hollywood played host to an influx of German pxpatriates in the Twenties and Thirties and these filmmakrs and technicians had, for the most part, integrated themselves into the American film esbalishment. Hollywood never experienced the “Germanization” some civic-minded natives feared and there is a danger of overmphasizing th eGerman influence in Holywood.

But when, in the alst Forties, Hollywood decided to paint it black, there were no greater masters of chiaroscuro than the Germans. The influence of expressionist lighting has always been just beneath the surface of Hollywood films and it is not surprising in film noir to find it pursting to find a larger number of German and East Europeans working in film noir.

First Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Franz Waxman, Otto Preminger, John Brhm, Anatole Litvak, Karl Kfruend, Max Ophuls, John Alton, Douglas Sir, Fred Zinnemann, William Dieterle, Max Steiner, Edgar G. Ulmer, Curtis Bernhardt, Rudolph Mate.

On the surface the German expressionsit influence; with its reliance on artificial studio lighting, seems incompatible with postwar realism, with its harsh unadorned exteriors, but it is the unique quality of film noir that it was able to weld seemingly contradictory elements into a unfirom style. The best noir technicians simply madke all the world a sound stage, directing unnatural an dexpressionistic lighting onto realistic settings. In films like Union Station, They Live by Night, The killers is an uneasy exhiliratingt combination of realism and expressionism.

Perhaps the greatest master of noir was Hungarian born John Alton, an expressionist cinematographer who could relight Tiems Square at noon if necessary. No cinematographer better adapted the old expressionst techniques to the new desire for realism and his black and white photography in such gritty film noir as T-Men, Raw Deal, I the Jury the Big Comb equals that of such German expressinst masters as Fritz Wagner and Karl Freund.

The Hardboiled tradition. Another stylistic influence waiting int he wings was the hardboiled school of writers. In the Thirties, authors such as Ernest Himginway, Dahsiell Hammett, Raymond Chanlder, James M. Cain, Horace McCoya nd John O’Hara crated the “tough,” cyunical way of acting and thinking which separated one from the world of everyday emotions0—romanticism with a protective shell. The hardboiled writiers had their roots in pulp fiction or journalism and their protagonists lived out a narcisstic, defeatist code. The hardboiled her was, in reality, a soft egg comparied to his existential counterpart (Camus is said to have based The Stranger on McCoy). But he was a good deal tougher than anything American fiction had seen.

When the movies of the Forties turned to the American “tough” moral understrata, the hardboiiled school was waiting with preset conventions of heroes, minor charactesr, plots, dialogue and themes. Like the German expatriates, the hardboiled writers had a style made to order for film noir and in turn they influence noir screrenwriting as much as the German influence noir cinmatography.

The most hardboiled of Hollywold’s writers was Raymond chandler himself, whose script of Double Indeminty (from a James M. Cain story) was the best written and most charactieristicaly noir of the period. Double Indemnity was the first film which played film noir for what it essentialyw as: smalltime, unredeemed, unheroic. It made a break from the romanitc noir cinma of the later Mildred Pierce and The Big Sleep.

{in its final stages, however, film noir adapted and then bypassed the hardboiled school. Manic, nuerotic post-1948 films such as Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, D.O.A. Where the Sidwlk Ends, White Heat and the Big Heat are all post-hardboiled; the air in these regions was even too thin for oldtime cynics like Chandler].

Stylistics: There is not yet a study of the stylistics of film noir and the task is certainly too large to be attempted here. Like all film movements, film noir drew upon a reservoir of film technicuqes and given the time one could correlate its techniques, tehmes and causal elements into a stylistic schema. For the present, however, I’d like to point out some of film noir’s recurring teniques.

• The majority of scenes are lit at night. Gangsters sit in the offices at midday with shades pulled adn the ligths off. Ceiling ligths are hung low and floor lamps are seldom more than five feet high. One always has the suspicion that if the lights were all suddenly flipped on the characters would shriek and srink from the scene like Count Dracula at sunrise.


• As in German expressionism, oblique and vertical lines are preferred to horizonatal. Obliquity adheres to the choreography of the city and is in direct opposition to the horizonal American tradition of Griffith and Ford. Oblique lines tend to splinter a screen, making it restless and unstable. Light enters the dingy rooms of film onir in such odd shapes—jagged trapezois, obtuse triangles, vertial slits—that one suspects the windows were cut out with a pen knife. No character cna speak authoritatively from a space which is being continually cut into ribbons of light. The Anthony Mann/John Alton T-Men is the most dramatic but far from the only example of oblique noir chorteography.


• The actors and setting are often given equal lighting emphasis. An actor is foften hiddein in the realistic tableau of the city at night, and more obviously his face is often blocked out by shadow as he speaks. These shadow effecsta re unlike the famous Warnger Brothers lighting of the Thirteis in which the central character was accentuated by a heavy shadow; in film onir, the central character is likely to be standing in the shadow. When the environment is given an equal or graeter weight than the actor it, of course, creates a fatalistic, hopeless mood. There is noth8ing the protagonist can do; the city will outlast and negate even his best efforts.

• Compositional tension is preffered to physical action. A typical film noir would rather move the scene cinematographically around the actor than have the actor control the scene by physical action. The beating of Robert Ryan in The Set-up, the gunning down of Farley Granger in They Live by Night, the execution of the taxi driver in The Enforcer and of Brian Donlevy in the Big Combo are all marked yb measured packing, restrained anger and oppressive compsitiosn, and seem much sloer to the film onir spirit than the rat-tat-tat and screeching tires of Scarface twenty years before or the violent, expressive actions of Underworld U.S.A. ten years later.

• There seems to be an almost Freudian attachment to water. The empty noir streets are almost always glistening with fresh evening rain (*even in Los Angele) and the rainfall tends ot increase in direct proportion to the drama. Docks and piers are second only to alleyways as the most popular rendezvous poitns.

• There is a love of romantic narration. In such films as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Laura, Double Indemnith, The Lady From Shanghai, Out of the Past and Sunset Bouelvard, the narrration creates a mood of temps perdu. An irretrievable pas, a prederermined fate and an all-envelooping hopelessness. In out of the Past, Robert Mitchum relates his history with such pathetic relish that it is obvious ther eis no hope for any future: one can only take pleasure in reliving a doomed past.

• A complex chronological order is frequently used to reinforce the feelings of hopelessnessa dn lost time. Such films as The Enforcer, The Killers, Mildred Pierce, The Dark Pask, Chicago Deadline, Out of the Past and the Killing use a convoluted time sequence to imerse the viewer in a time-disoriented but highly styled world. The manipualation of time whether slight or complex, is often used to reinforce a noir princple: the how is always more important than the what.

Themes: Raymond Durgnat has delineated the themes of film noir in an excellent article in the British Cinema magainze *(the failmy tree of film noire, August 1970) and it would be foolish for me  to attempt to redo his thorough workin this short space. Durgnat divides film noir into eleven thematic categories and although one might criticiaee zome of his specific groupings, eh does cover the whole gamt of noir production (thematically categorizing over 300 films).

In each of Durgnat’s noir themese (whether Black Widow, kilers-on-the, run, dopplegangers) one finds that the upwardly mobile forces of the Thirties have halted, frontierism has turned to paranoise and lcaustrophibiua. The smalltime ganster has now made it big and stis in the mayor’s chair, the private eye has quit the police force in disgust and the young heroine, sick of going along for the ride, is taking others for a ride.

Durgnat, however, does not touch upon what is perhaps the overriding noir theme: a passion for the past and present but also a fear of the future. The noir hero dreads to look ahead but intstead tirs to survive by the day and if uncessuful at that he retreats to the past. Thus film noir’s techniques emphaisze loss, nostaligia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity, then subjerge these self-=doubts in mannerism and styule. In such a world style becomes paramoutn; it is all that separates one from meaninglessness. Chandler described this fundamental noir theme when he dsecribed his own fictional world: “It isnot a very fragrant world but it is the world you live in and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of detachemtn can make very interesting patterns out of it.”

Film noir can be subdivided into three broad phases. The first, the wartime period 1941-46 approximately, was the phase of the privaet eye and lone wolf, of Chandler, Hammett and Greene, of Bogart and Bacall, Ladd and Lake, classy directors like Curtiz and Garnett, studio sets and ingeneral more talk than action. The stuiod look of this period was reflected in such pectures as the Malese Falcon, Casabalnce, Gaslight, This Gun for Hire, the Lodges, the Woman in the Window, Mildred Pierce,m Spellbound, Teh Big Sleep, Laura, the Lost wEekend, the Strange Love of Martha Ivers to Have and Have Not, Fallen Angel, Gilda, Murder My Swtt, the Postman Always Rings Twice, Dark Waters, Scarlet Street, So Dark the Night, the Glass Key, the Mask of Dimitrios and The Dark Mirror.

The Wilder/ Chandler Double Indemnity provided a bridge to the postwar phase of film noir. The unflinching noir vision of Double Indemnith came as a shock in 1944 and the film was alsmot blocked by the combined efforts of Parmoutn, the Hays office and star Fred MacMurry [That sounds like total bullshit to me, LRH] Three years alter, whoever, Dobule Indemnitys were dropping off the studio assembly line.

The second phase was the psotwar realistic period from 1945-49 (the dates overlap and so do the films; these are all approxmiate phases for which threre are many exepctions). These films tended mroe toward the problems of crime in the streets, political corruption and police routine. Less romantic heroes like Ricahrd Conte, Burt Lancaster and Charles McGraw were more suited to this period, as were proletarian directors like Hathaway, Dassin and Kazan. The realistic urban look of this pahse is seen in such films as The House in 92nd Street, The Killers, Raw Deal, Acto of Violence, Union Station, Kiss of Death, Johnny O’Clock, Force of Evil, Dead Reckoning, Ride tghe Pink Horse, Dark Passage, Cry of the City, the Set-up, T-Men, Call Northside 7, Brute Force, t/he Big Clock, Theives Highway, Ruthelss, Pitfall, Boomerang! And the Naked City.

The third and final phase of iflm noir from 1949-53, was the period of psychotic actio and suicidal impulsse,. The noir horer, seemingly under the weight of ten eyars of despair, started to go bananas. The pyschotic killer who in the first period [had] been a subject worthy of study (Olivia de Havilland in The Dark Mirror) in the second a fringe threat (Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death) now became the active protagonist (aJames Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye). There were no ex uses given for the psychopathy in Gun Crazy0—it was just “crazy.” James Cagney made a neurotic comeback and his instabiility was matched by that of younger actors like Robert Ryan and lee Marvin. This was the phase of the “B” noir film, and of psychoanalytically inclied directors like Ray and Walsh. The forces of personal disintegration are reflected in such films as White Heat, Gun Crazy, D.O.A., Caught, They Live by Night, Where the Sidwalk Edns, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Detective Story, in a Lonely Place, I the Jury Ace in the Hole, Panic in the Streets,the Big Heat, On Dangerous Ground and Sunset Boulevard.

This third phase is the cream of the film noir period. Somecrtiics may prefer the early “gray” meldrama,s others the postwar “street” films, but film noir’s final phase was the most aesthetically and socioligcally piercing. After ten years of setaedily shedding romatnic conventions the later noir films finally got down to the root causes of the priod: the loss of public honor, hoeric conventiosn, personal integrity and finally psychic stability. The thrid phaase films were panifuilly self-aware. They seemed to know whtey stood at the ned of a long tradition based on dsepair and disintegration and did not shy away from the fact. The best and charateristicaly noir films—Gun Crazy,White Heat, Out of the Past, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, D.O.A., They Live by Night and the Big Heat—stand at thend of the period and are the results of self-awareness. The third phase is rife with end of the line noir heroies. The Big Heat and Where the Sidwalk Ends are the last stops for the urban cop. Ace in the Hole for the newspaperman, the Victor Saville-produced Spillane series (I the Jury, the Long Wait, Kiss Me Deadly) for the private eye. Sunset Boulevard forthe Black Widow, White Heat and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye for the gangster. D.O.A. for the John Doe American.

Appropriately, the amsterpeice of film noir was a straggler, Kiss Me Deadly, produced in 1955. Its time delay gives it a sense of detachment and thhoroughgoing seediness—it stands at thene do fa long sleazy tradition. The private eye hero, Mike Hammer, undergoes the final stages of degratation. He is a smallt-eim “bedroom dick<’ and maeks no qualms about it beacuse the world around him isn’t much better. Ralph Meeker, in his best prformances, plays Hammer, a midget among dwarfs. Ropbert Aldrich’s teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most preversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the “great whatsit” and when he finally finds it, it turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb. The inhumanity and meaningless of the hero are small matters in a world in which The Bomb has the final say.

By the middle Fifteis film noir ahd ground to a halt. There were a few notable straggles, Kiss Me Deadly, the Lewis/Alton The Big Combo and film noir’s epitaph, Touch of Evil, but for the most pasrt a new style of crime film had become popular.

AS the rise of McCarthy and Eisenhower demonstrated, Americans were eager to see a more biourgeois view of themselves. Crime had to move to the suburbs. The criminal put on a gray flannel suit and the footsore cop was repalced by the “mobile unit” careening down the expressway. Any attempt at social criticism had to be claoekd inludicrous affirmations of the American way of life. Techinically, television, with its demand for full lgithitng and close-ups gradually undercut the German infleunce and color cinmatograph way, of course, the final blow to the “noir” look.

New directors like Siegel, Fleisher, Karlson and Fuler and TV shows like Dragnet, M-Squad, Lineup and Highway Patrol stepped in to create the new crime drama. This transition can be seen in Samuel Fuller’s 1953 Pickup on South Street, a film which blends the black look with the Red scare. The waterfront scenes with Ricahrd Widmark adn Jean Peters are in the best noir tradition but a lter dynamic fight in the subway marks Fuler as a directr who would be better suited to the crime school of the middle and late Fifteis.

Film noir was an immensely creeative period==probably the msot creative in Hollywood’s history-at least if this creativity is measured not by its peaks but by its medial level of artistriy. Picked at random, a film noir is likely to be a better made film than a randomly selected silent comedy, meusical, western and so on [oh what fatuous crap—LRH] (A Joseph H. Lewis “B” film noir is better than Lewis “B” western for example). Take ans a whole period film noir achieve an usually high level of artistry. [and we don’t have to feel guilty for “slumming,” eh? LRH]

Film noir seemed to bring out the best in everyone: directors, cameramen, screenwritesrs, actors. Again and again, a film noir will make the high point on an artist’s career graph. Some directors, for example, did their best work in film noir (Stuart Heisler, Robert Siodmak, Gordon Douglas, Deward Dmytryk, John Brahm, John Cromwell, Raoul Walsh, Henry Hathaway) other directors began in film noir and it seems to me never regained their original heights (Oto Priminger, Rudoplph Mate, Nichaolas Ray, Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Ricahrd Fleischer, John Huston, Andrew de Toth and Robert Aldrich) and other directorw sho made gerat films in other molds also made great film noir (Orson Welles, Max Ophusls, Fritz Lang,Elia Kaza, Howard Hawks, Robert Rossen, Anthony Mann, Joseph Losey,Aflred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick). Whether ornot one agrees with this particular schema, its message is irrefutable: film noir was good for practiallye very director’s career (two interesting exceptiosn to prove the case are King Vidor and Jean Renoir).

Film noir seems to have been a creative relase for everyone invovled. It gave artists a chance to work with previosly forbidden thesems yet had conventions strong enough to protect the mediocre. Cinematographers were allowed to become highly mannered and actors were sheltered by the cinematorgaphers. Itw as not until years later that critics were able to disginsuish between great directors and great noir directors.

Film moir’s remarksable creativity makes its longtime neglect the more baffling. The French of course, have been students of the priod of rsome time (Borde and Chaumeton’s Panorama du Film Noir was publisehd in1955) but American crticis until recently have preferred the weastern, the musical or the gangster film to the film noir. Some of the reasons for this neglect are usperficial; otehrs strike to the heart of thenoir style. For a long time, film noir, with its emphasis on corruption and despire, was considerred an aberration of the Amrican character. The western, with its moral primitivism and the ganster film with its Horatio Alger values, were consdiered mor Aemrican than the film noir.

This prejudice was reinforced by the fact taht film noir was ideally suited to the low budget “:B”: film and many ofthe best nori films were “B” films. This odd sort of economic snobbery still lingers on in some critical circles: high-budget trash that is considered more worhty of attention than low-budget trash and to praise a “B”: film is somehow to slight (often intentionally) an “A” film.

Tehre has been a critical revival in the U.S. over the last tne years but film noir lost out on that too. The revivla was auteur (director) oriented and film noir wasn’t. Auteur criticism is intereste in how directors are different; film onir criticism is concerned with what they have in common.

The fundamentla reason for film noir’s neglect, however, is that theact that it depends more on choreopgrahy than sociology and American critics have always been slow on the uptake when it coems to visual style. Like its protagonists, film noir is more interested in style than theme, whereas Aemrican critics have been tradioanly more interseted in theme than style.

American film critics have always been sociologists first and scientsits second. Film is importnat as it realtes to large masses, and if a film goes awry it is often becasue the theme has been somehow “violated” by the style. Fil noir operates on opposite princples. The theme is hidden int he style and bogus themse are often haunted (“middle class values are best”) which contradit the style. Although I believe style determines the theme in every film it was easier for sociolgocial critics to discuss the themes of the western and gangster film apart from stylistic analysis than it was to do for film noir.

Not surprisngly it was the ganster film, not the film noir, which was canonized in the Partisan Reveiw in 1948 by Robert Warshow’s famous essay “The Ganster as Tragic Hero.” Although Warshow could be an aesthetic as well as a socioloical critic, in this case he was interestedi n the western and ganster film as “popular” art rather than as style. This socilogical orientation blinded Warshow as it has many subsuejquent critics to an aestheically more important developemtn in the ganster film—film noir.

The irony of this negled is that in retropsect the ganster films Warshow wrote about are inferior to film noir. The Thirties ganster was primarly a reflection of what was hpapening in the country and Warshow analhyzed htis. The film noir, althoouth it was also a sociologcial reflection, went furtehr than the ganster film. Twoard the end film noir was engaed in a life and dath strugle with the materials it reflecte; it tried to make Aemrica accept a moral vision of life abased on style. That very contradition—promitng style in acutlure which valued themes—forced film oir into artically invigorating twists and turns. Filmn noir attacked and interpreted its socioloical conditions and by the cloe of the noir period created a new artistic world whhich went beyond a simple sociolical reflection, a nightmarish world of Aemrcian mannerism which was far more a craetion than a reflection.

Because film noir was first of all a style because it workd out its ocnflicts vidually rather than thematically because it was aware of its own identity, ti was able to create artistic solutions to sociological problems Adn for these reasons films like Kiss Mea Deadly and Kiss Tomorrow Goodby and Gun Crazy can be works of art in a way that gangster films like Scarface Public Enemy and Little Caesar can never be.