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Some Notes
Dec. 1st, 2019 06:12 pmI made some notes last week on Victorian/Edwardian noir— this is all half-formed, but I’m posting it before I forget.
I’m going to define V/E Noir as “made in 1940s Hollywood, set in late 19th-early-20th-century England, and imbued with the themes we associate with noir – crime, moral complexity, fear, guilt and a sense of personal identity as a shifting thing. I think it may be grounded in the associations people had with the era— black-and-white photography, repression, stuffy parlour/hothouse atmosphere, or contrariwise, fog, Sherlock Holmes, and the Ripper; getting to the roots of pulp. Several of the movies below were adapted from novels *not* set in the Victorian era.
The Verdict (1946) Dir.
Don Siegel Sydney Greenstreet is a Scotland Yard super whose career is derailed after he catches the wrong man (who is executed for a murder he didn’t do); it’s implied his failure was at least in part due to his subordinate (who later takes his job) deliberately holding back evidence to sabotage him. Nevertheless, he takes it upon himself to catch the real killer, assisted by his louche artist friend, Peter Lorre.
The Lodger (1944) Dir. John Brahm
Laird Cregar is a mysterious lodger in the same boarding house as Merle Oberon. He’s also Jack the Ripper, or the same with the serial numbers filed off, and his hatred for his victims is because he blames “wicked women” for his brother’s ruin and death (from syphilis, probably). How long before he decides Oberon (whose character is a stage actress) is one of those wicked women?
Hangover Square (1945) also directed by John Brahm
A follow-up to The Lodger, and Cregar’s last film, in which he’s a tormented composer who goes into a fuge state and kills unknowingly whenever he’s triggered by an off-key chord. OK, this one’s arguably a werewolf movie. I wrote about it in more detail here.
The Suspect (1944) Dir. Robert Siodmak.
Charles Laughton is a sympathetic protagonist who probably kills his unpleasant* wife (Rosalind Ivan) between scenes (it’s not shown, and he never actually admits to it). She’s the same actress Edward G. Robinson was married to in Scarlet Street, only here they have an adult son who moves out, apologizing to his father, because he just can’t take her abuse any more. That said, the real villains in this movie are the thin walls between lower-middle-class terraced houses, and fear of what the neighbours will think. Laughton would have gotten away with everything if he hadn’t panicked and definitely killed his blackmailing, wife-beating, sneering, played-by-Henry-Daniell neighbor. Ella Raines plays the nice girl he kills for, and she’s pretty convincing despite her American accent, though I do prefer her in films where she gets to be more intimidating.
I’m going to define V/E Noir as “made in 1940s Hollywood, set in late 19th-early-20th-century England, and imbued with the themes we associate with noir – crime, moral complexity, fear, guilt and a sense of personal identity as a shifting thing. I think it may be grounded in the associations people had with the era— black-and-white photography, repression, stuffy parlour/hothouse atmosphere, or contrariwise, fog, Sherlock Holmes, and the Ripper; getting to the roots of pulp. Several of the movies below were adapted from novels *not* set in the Victorian era.
The Verdict (1946) Dir.
Don Siegel Sydney Greenstreet is a Scotland Yard super whose career is derailed after he catches the wrong man (who is executed for a murder he didn’t do); it’s implied his failure was at least in part due to his subordinate (who later takes his job) deliberately holding back evidence to sabotage him. Nevertheless, he takes it upon himself to catch the real killer, assisted by his louche artist friend, Peter Lorre.
The Lodger (1944) Dir. John Brahm
Laird Cregar is a mysterious lodger in the same boarding house as Merle Oberon. He’s also Jack the Ripper, or the same with the serial numbers filed off, and his hatred for his victims is because he blames “wicked women” for his brother’s ruin and death (from syphilis, probably). How long before he decides Oberon (whose character is a stage actress) is one of those wicked women?
Hangover Square (1945) also directed by John Brahm
A follow-up to The Lodger, and Cregar’s last film, in which he’s a tormented composer who goes into a fuge state and kills unknowingly whenever he’s triggered by an off-key chord. OK, this one’s arguably a werewolf movie. I wrote about it in more detail here.
The Suspect (1944) Dir. Robert Siodmak.
Charles Laughton is a sympathetic protagonist who probably kills his unpleasant* wife (Rosalind Ivan) between scenes (it’s not shown, and he never actually admits to it). She’s the same actress Edward G. Robinson was married to in Scarlet Street, only here they have an adult son who moves out, apologizing to his father, because he just can’t take her abuse any more. That said, the real villains in this movie are the thin walls between lower-middle-class terraced houses, and fear of what the neighbours will think. Laughton would have gotten away with everything if he hadn’t panicked and definitely killed his blackmailing, wife-beating, sneering, played-by-Henry-Daniell neighbor. Ella Raines plays the nice girl he kills for, and she’s pretty convincing despite her American accent, though I do prefer her in films where she gets to be more intimidating.
