I found it interesting in both Double Indemnity and Chinatown when the characters are in dire need of escaping the situation they are in, the vehicle appears not to start at first. The car, of course, eventually starts but this type of suspension makes the audience draw a breath in anticipation.

Jacques Tourneur

This is Irena's Arrested Development

While watching Cat People, I got the impression that Irena was being portrayed as very child like.  From the first scene, where she is discarding paper without worry of what happens to it, you can tell she isn't quite right.  She doesn't seem to have a care or need for rules.  After Oliver leaves her place for the first time, she is seen on the balcony, looking down with a love struck look on her face.  She looks like someone who has a schoolgirl crush.  On their second meeting, she sits and watches Oliver sleep, right before admitting to him that she loves him.  This is not something an adult does (I know Oliver then repeats the sentiment, but this could be for many reasons).  She is told multiple times that she is living in the past. She believes a child's fable to be true (okay, so it is. Perhaps if she didn't give it power, it wouldn't come to fruition).  I didn't catch it until we re-watched the bird scene, but while she is playing with the bird, trying to catch it, she looks JUST like a little child.  I think it is when Oliver finally admits that it is too late for them that she finally grows up into an adult (and a panther).  When she is seen turning on the lights in the pool, she is not the same little girl we had seen throughout the movie.  She has finally grown up.

Why the use of a panther?

I was watching the film and wondered to myself why is the animal of choice a panther?
 
Anyone have an answer for me?

Silence is Golden

After watching our first three movies, it seemed as if every second of those movies was filled with sound (dialogue, music, or background noise). While viewing Cat People, there were noticeably long periods of silence. It was amazing to recognize how powerful this silence was. It is as if the silence had its own character-like qualities (mysterious, complex, etc). We all have been watching horror movies for years and are fully aware of the powerful role that silence plays, but this movie is 70 years old. I know that Cat People almost seems almost childlike now, but I can see how it was so groundbreaking for its time. Aided by the long periods of silence, this movie played on the imagination of the viewer, which was contrary to the other horror movies of its time.

Val Lewton and the Creation of Cat People

Jennifer Sonner

Val Lewton and the Creation of Cat People
            In the year 1939 the film studio RKO-Radio Pictures was the “smallest of the majors” (Vieira 121) and was described as “an odd little studio that had barely survived its first ten years” (121).  In fact, the studio’s reputation was one that was belittled by other studios, like Paramount and their declaration that “In case of an air raid, go directly to RKO.  They haven’t had a hit in years!”  Desperate, the studio decided to make several changes, putting Joseph Breen and Charles Koener in charge of RKO in 1942, and it was Breen who decided to hire an “affable” story editor named Val Lewton to breathe some much needed fresh air into the studio’s motion pictures.   He would take the job, and could have complete artistic freedom and creative control if he followed certain conditions.  These conditions were:
1.      He had to produce “Horror Programmers”
2.      He had to keep the budget of each film under $150,000.
3.      Accepted titles would be arrived at by a system of marketing research
4.      Agree to a salary of $250 a week.

Lewton agreed to these conditions, but later stated that “They may think I am going to do the usual chiller stuff which’ll make a quick profit, be laughed at, and be forgotten, but I’m going to fool them . . . I’m going to do the kind of suspense movie I like” (121).  Lewton came to RKO believing that the typical vampire, werewolf, and man-made monster had been over-exploited in the last few years, but “nobody had done much with cats.”  This, in essence, is how Cat People came to be.

The title for Cat People came from, according to specific sources, an over-excited Hollywood party-goer who confronted Lewton and told him to create a film with the catchy title Cat People.  The name, despite Lewton’s objections that they were “stuck with that title,” became the basis for Lewton’s film.  This, along with a multitude of other personal inspirations, was the beginning of what was to become the film Cat People.

Cat People was written by Val Lewton and DeWitt Bodeen, the latter writer inspired by a magazine layout featuring models wearing cat masks.  According to Ruth Lewton, Val’s wife, he “dredged his own Russian Jewish psyche to write the first film” (121).  When it came to Russian folk legends, the one that effected Lewton the most were the ones about cats.  He was absolutely frightened by cats.  He used this as insight into a film that was to be anchored on the concepts of horror, though Lewton “tossed away the horror formula from the beginning” (122).  Lewton did this because he wanted a film that dramatized the psychology of fear, playing on the thing that all people dread:  the unknown.  By using darkness to highlight what may have been lurking in the shadows, Lewton created a film that used suspense and audience perception to create the big scares in Cat People.   

Another decision that helped create the suspense-filled picture was Lewton’s friend Jacques Tourneur, a man who “had a flair for creating shadowy sequences.”  According to Tourneur, they believed in “suggesting horror rather than showing it” (122).  Horror scholars have consented that “the horror is dependent on the sharply demarcated lines drawn between the animal kingdom and ourselves. If this boundary were lifted, horror might be transformed” (Powell 69).  What one finds through Lewton’s film is a new perspective on the concepts of the horror genre, one that is challenged and questioned by looking to the horror films that came before Cat People.

Another aspect that defines Val Lewton’s work on Cat People is the B-movie qualities of the film.  Lewton often referred to himself as “no artist” but also “Lewton liked to note the trashiness of his work . . . yet as any viewer of these films knows, trash was beauty for Lewton” (Nemerov 8).  The beginning of the film (which I will not describe for those who have not seen it) actually drops a hint to the audiences on Lewton’s beliefs that this work had an air of disposability to it.  This was another motif that spanned through his collection of films, as Lewton meditated on the fickle nature of the film industry while also exalting the “trashiness” of his design.  This mocking tone for film was also a type of motto for the filmmaker, watch Cat People and see if you can spot his belief that “let no one say, and say it to your shame, that all was beauty here, until you came” (Nemerov 8).

Audiences seemed to agree with Lewton and Tourneur, as Cat People became a sleeper hit for RKO, making more than $3 million on the terror of the unknown. According to sources, “Cat People saved RKO when it was practically bankrupt” (Vieira 122) and Lewton went from obscurity to one of RKO’s golden boys. An interesting note to mention is that the creation of his films ended up being partly a result of his contractual conditions, where his budget and title restriction led to both the resulting Cat People and his new approach to horror in general.  Lewton, in only four years, “brought a singular vision to the screen in nine Gothic thrillers before RKO abandoned him and his unit” (Dixon 43).  Though Lewton died early in his life and career, at age 46, in a short amount of time Lewton created a new approach to the horror genre.  In doing so, films like Cat People and his other RKO pictures are now known as genre-bending additions in the annals of horror.   

Works Cited

Dixon, Winston Wheeler.  A History of Horror.  New Brunswick:  Rutgers University Press, 2010.  Print.

Nemerov, Alexander.  Icons of Grief:  Val Lewton’s Home Front Pictures.  Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2005.  Print.
Powell, Anna.  Deleuze and Horror Film.  Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press, 2005.  Print.
Vieira, Mark A.  Hollywood Horror:  from Gothic to Cosmic.  New York:  Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003.  Print. 

Under Cover of Darkness

           I think that the main idea throughout Chinatown was that no one cares what happens there. We obviously do not see what happens after the big murder at the end of the movie, but would it have made the papers? At the beginning Gittes gets a picture of Mr. Mulwray with his supposed mistress. This picture makes the front page of the newspaper. Yet I question if the murder of Mrs. Mulwray would even make it into the papers because it occurred in this desolate 'Chinatown'.
          This movie also highlighted the differences between night and day. Everything bad that happened happened during the dark of night, while during the day everything seemed very civil and orderly. Gittes sat down and had lunch with Mr. Cross (the "good" guy and the "bad" guy) and everything was just like another day. All of the "bad stuff" happens under the cover of darkness.

Real Locations vs Sound Stages

I had a difficult time getting 'involved' with Out of the Past, I felt like I was watching a play more than real events.  I believe it is because a lot of the outdoor scenes were done on a sound stage.  Some scenes that come to mind: The rainy house Kathy and Jeff stayed at, some woods scenes, and Whit's house on Lake Tahoe.

It's not that sound stages immediately turn me away, indoor scenes and cities can be done quite realistically, but seeing a backdrop of Lake Tahoe instead of the real thing ruins the immersion.  I don't know how well everyone else noticed, but I could see fake rain and fake woods that had a 'convenient' clearing for the camera.

We have talked about intentional low key lighting, and dark scenes in noir, but I wonder if the reason so many scenes are dark is partially because directors liked shooting in real outdoor locations at night.  I liked the night scenes in Double Indemnity and Chinatown because a lot of them were extremely dark which that added to the immersion.  Most modern movies light up the darkness, but retaining the darkness adds grit to the films.  What do you all think?

Night and Day

I noted that Tourneur like to create parallel worlds of light and dark. The focal character travels back and forth between them, attempting to choose which world they'll live in. Jeff's mistake in Out of the Past is his belief that he can live in both. By the end he realizes (and pays for) that mistake. As I mentioned in our discussion, I think his actions at the end are to save Anne from making a similar mistake through her relationship with him.

Robert Mitchum... An All-American Icon

Robert Mitchum.  Who was this tall, dark haired actor with the deep resonating voice?  His was not a flashy style, but rather, he seemed to express an attitude of “Here I am, take me or leave me.”  Fortunately the American movie goers decided not only to take him, but to elevate him to one of its elite.  We loved him and appreciated his ability to make acting look so easy.   His own attitude about his acting was that it was no big deal.   Mitchum was a natural.  Yet the pathway to his success was not nearly so smooth.  
Mitchum’s first acting performance was in the low budget “Hopalong Cassidy” series where he played a villain in a couple films.  He continued being in westerns for a few years until catching a big break during the making of “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”  Director Mervyn LeRoy signed Mitchum to a seven-year contract with RKO Radio Pictures.  The Story of G.I. Joe was Mitchum’s first movie to receive much attention as it was nominated for 4 Oscar awards. 

Mitchum was most known for his film noir genre.  He was in multiple movies of this genre including “When Strangers Marry,” “Undercurrent,” “The Locket,” “Crossfire,” “Blood on the Moon,” and “The Big Steal.”

Mitchum could play either the good guy or the bad guy role.  He was comfortable in playing the role of detective, soldier, cowboy, or criminal.  He had a laid back persona, yet in a quiet way he seemed to always take command of the situation and the screen.  He was not a conformist, but rather lived his life seeking no one’s approval but his own.  His sad eyes made him seem more genuine and believable in his roles. 

Over the course of his 50+ year acting career, Mitchum was in over 100 different films/television shows.  While being nominated for several Academy Awards, Mitchum only won one Golden Globe Award and a few other less known awards.  Even though he may not have many awards, he is still credited as being the 23^rd best male actor of all time according to the American Film Institute. 

According to the American Film Institute, Mitchum’s best acting performances were as villains.  His most popular is as the slimy Max Cady, a recently released prisoner out for revenge in 1962’s original film, “Cape Fear.”  Robert DeNiro’s portrayal in the 1991 remake was magnificent.  While many did not realize it, Mitchum created a monster in his original portrayal of Max Cady that DeNiro built upon. 

During Mitchum’s acting career, he got in trouble with the law in 1948.  He was arrested for the possession of Marijuana.  This tarnished his image a bit, but at the same time made him more believable in many of his movie characters.  He stepped out of character to star in a Christmas movie called “Holiday Affair.”  While it is not as well-known as “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it still makes for a good movie.  I feel like this promoted a nice guy image for him.  Ladies seemed to like him whether he was friendly or indifferent.

While seeming like a drifter in his days before acting, he was able to maintain a long term acting career and marriage that lasted 57 years until his death.  Smoking and alcohol contributed to his death in 1997 of lung cancer.  Robert Mitchum is an icon and his movies will be cherished for many years to come.

In tonight’s film, “Out of the Past,” Mitchum portrays a hired detective.  He is a laid back, easy going person with a hidden past.  His character is contrasted by co-star, Kirk Douglas’s portrayal of a flashy, arrogant control freak.  One woman, as usual in this type of film, turns on a little heat. 

-Garret Gleckler

Psychological Horror and Noir

Paul Meehan, in Horror Noir, states that "the realism of psychological horror brings it closer to the spirit of film noir" (Meehan 6).  I'd push it a bit further and state that psychological horror films are often similar to noir, which can often rely on "psychological" horror for its effect.  This week we're having a Jacques Tourneur film festival of sorts with Out of the Past and Cat People which demonstrates exactly this connection of psychological horror and noir.  

The figure of the femme fatale  suits the connection as women in both genres are often monstrous in one way or another.  Not the female leads shadowy allure in these images.  The shadows are initially seductive, but eventually darken into terror or horror.  Interestingly, Kathie in Out of the Past and Irena in Cat People are opposites for the most part, the former protesting helplessness for her betrayals and harm, the latter actually so, at least internally, cursed by her "blood."

Kathie enters in Out of the Past

Irena exits in Cat People

The characters often mirror the journey from light to darkness (literally and internally) the male protagonist undertakes with the audience.

We see through Jake's eyes

One thing that I noticed quite often throughout Chinatown is how the there seem to be a lot of shots through the point of view of Gettis.  Early on, there are quite a few scenes where the camera is directly over the shoulder of Gettis, and some where we literally are seeing what Gettis is seeing, pov style.  I think this also could be thrown in to the conversation we had last night about a lot of focus being on eyes.  I think we, as the audience, are supposed to feel as if we are solving this case as if we were Jake.  I read that there was originally supposed to be a voice over, but Polanski decided he wanted the audience to find the clues as Jake does.  I think seeing through his eyes is another way of having the audience see what Gettis is seeing, and finding the clues as Gettis finds the clues.

"Bad for Glass"

The phrase is the gardner's mispronounciation of "bad for grass" in reference to the salt in the goldfish pool. He seems an insignificant character, but he holds an important key to solving the death of Hollis Mulwray. It's not until he finally listens to him that he begins to figure it all out. Similarly, he can't understand Evelyn's situation until he finally listens to her. Both instances show Jake guided by his assumptions and presumptions about women and "invisible," marginalized people. He doesn't see them, just as he doesn't see the clue (Cross's bifocals) right in front of his face, Jake's "bad glasses."

 

Something I noticed about Chinatown

What I found interesting in Chinatown is how Jake is so noble. He refused to take bribes from Cross. I enjoyed watching Jake, but I noticed that at the end of the movie it seems like he left the police force because they were not noble. At the end when he was told to just forget it that "its just china town" he looked shocked as he walked away.

I think it was better that he was no longer in the police force so that he can not be bought, because Cross owned the police.

Hello this is Monique bush just wanted to contact my panel see how we are going to go about what we are going to cover can reach me at bushm01@students.ipfw.edu

Jake and Evelyn

Contrast Jake and Evelyn's relationship with Phyllis and Walter's. We noted a certain awkwardness and tension between them in their embraces. Is the same true in Chinatown?

Am I an idiot or....

During my drive home after class tonight, I could not get the thought out of my head that Evelyn knew more about the murder of Hollis than she, or the movie, led us to believe. There is no denying that she was knowingly misleading or ambiguous in much of her information she shared with Jake. The key piece of evidence to me was when Jake wanted to find Hollis to help him out. After much prodding, Evelyn finally told Jake that Hollis liked to spend time looking at rocks at Stone Canyon Reservoir. This is where the body of Hollis was discovered. I know the movie pointed us in the direction that Evelyn felt her father had a hand in the murder of Hollis, but did she actually know that her father did it? Why did she tell Jake the exact location of the murdered body? Did she witness the murder and the disposal of the body? Am I dwelling too much on this little fact?  

Forget it, Jake. It's the seventies.

Ok, the line doesn't go that way, but it's still a good question. How do we see the seventies era influence in the film even if it's set loosely in the noir time frame (which actually fell a bit after the water wars depicted in the film) or late 30s anyway. So, where do we see the seventies?

Chinatown: Robert Evans, John A. Alonzo, Sam O’Steen

The most memorable people from a film are usually the actors, director and writer, but a film is comprised of elements from many other people.  The producer, cinematographer and editor of Chinatown each made successful careers in Hollywood spanning decades.

            Robert Evans was the producer of Chinatown.  He was born June 29, 1930 in New York City.  As a young adult, he did promotional work for his brother’s fashion company as well as some radio voice work.  In 1956, Norma Shearer, an actress, saw him at a pool and thought he would be good for a role.  She cast him in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces which led to a few roles in other films.

            Evans was not happy with his ability to act and desired to become a producer.  He purchased the rights to the novel The Detective and adapted it into a film starring Frank Sinatra.  The film’s success led to Evans becoming the Head of Production at Paramount Pictures.  At the time, Paramount was ranked ninth among production companies, but Evans pushed the company to first.  Some popular films produced as the Head of Production of Paramount include: Rosemary’s Baby, The Odd Couple, The Italian Job, True Grit, Love Story, Harold and Maude, The Godfather, Serpico, Save the Tiger, The Great Gatsby and The Conversation.

            Eventually Evans quit his job at Paramount to produce films independently.  Some popular films he independently produced include: Chinatown, Marathon Man, Black Sunday, Urban Cowboy, Popeye and The Cotton Club.

            John A. Alonzo was the cinematographer of Chinatown.  He was born June 12, 1934 in Dallas, Texas.  He started his career as a crewmember of a Dallas television station.  He would do everything from building sets to directing shows.  He partnered up with Hank Williamson to create a comedy duo where he would voice and puppeteer a turtle and introduced cartoons.  The duo got a show on a television station in Hollywood in 1956, but it was cancelled after six months.  Alonzo then worked as a photographer and actor in television shows such as the Twilight Zone, Combat, 77 Sunset Strip and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

            While acting on The Magnificent Seven, he met cinematographer Charles Lange who inspired him to move into the field.  His earliest shooting was on documentaries including: Revolution in Our Time, Do Blonds Have More Fun?, A Nation of Immigrants, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and various National Geographic specials.  His more popular film and television works include: Vanishing Point, Harold and Maude, Chinatown, The Bad News Bears, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Black Sunday, Scarface, Roots: The Gift, The Guardian, and WWII When Lions Roared.

Alonzo’s talents laid in hand held shooting, lighting and HD development.  He had two Oscar Nominations; one for Best Short Film (The Legend of Jimmy Blue Eyes), and one for Best Camera (Chinatown).  He had two Emmy Nominations; one for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography (WWII When Lion’s Roared, the first American HD movie), and one for Outstanding Cinematography (Lansky).  Alonzo won an Emmy in 2000 for Outstanding Lighting Direction (Fail-Safe).

 

            Sam O’Steen was the editor of Chinatown.  He was born November 6, 1923 in Paragould, Arkansas.  At a young age, he knew he wanted to be an editor and spent time at Warner Brothers to get his foot in the door.  In 1956 he was hired as the Assistant Editor for The Wrong Man.  He was an Assistant editor on many films until 1964 when he was promoted to Editor for Youngblood Hawke.  O’Steen soon became the editor on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Mike Nichols.  Over a span of 28 years, O’Steen was the primary editor on twelve of Nichols’ films including The Graduate, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, The Day of the Dolphin, Silkwood, Heartburn, Biloxi Blues, Working Girl, Postcards from the Edge, Regarding Henry and Wolf.

O’Steen’s editing abilities gave him three Academy Award nominations, one BAFTA nomination (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), and one BAFTA win.  Nominations were for the films Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Chinatown and Silkwood.  The BAFTA Award was for his work on The Graduate, which writer Patrick J. Sauer praises for the long cuts on Dustin Hoffman’s face which helped viewers absorb what the character was thinking.

Chinatown in part was a critical success for Robert Evan’s ability to efficiently produce, John A. Alonzo’s skills in lighting and cinematography, and Sam O’Steen’s innovative editing.

-Isaac Fingerle

Sam Won't Play the Sap for Anyone, especially You

The conclusion of the Falcon

Classic Noir Detective

Noirs come in two varieties--family drama/murder plot and the detective mystery. Double Indemnity obviously fits the first type, while Chinatown, as we'll see, revamps the second. To offer a point of comparison, check the archetype of the noir detective, Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart, of course).

Weird Sex: The Most Persistent and Censored Theme in Film Noir (this contains some spoilers for CHINATOWN)

(Some Chinatown spoilers ahead...you've been warned)

            It is hardly revelatory to point out that sex is a persistent theme throughout film noir and its antecedents in prose. What is interesting is the regularity in which not only sex but also sexual deviance and bizarre sexual relationships appear as central themes in the genre. What is of further interest is how the films produced under the Motion Picture Production Code (the Hays Code) attempted to suppress these themes but was only partially successful. The Hays Code forbade nudity (or even the suggestion of nudity), sexual perversion, prostitution and mixed-race sexual relationships. It also cautioned against revealing the technique of committing murder, the use of firearms, rape, and “excessive or lustful kissing” (Lewis 301). It is also worth noting that there is no definitive understanding provided for “sexual perversion,” although it most assuredly refers, at least in part, to homosexuality.[1] Although homosexuality and mixed-race relationships are not in any way deviant or perverse behavior, the Hays Code and many audience members would have held them as such because of antiquated, bigoted views created by the cultural climate of the post-Victorian, Christian West. With such stifling, yet vague, controls, one wonders how any noir films were made while maintaining fealty to the source material.

            Sadly, this discussion does not permit the space required for a reasonable survey of crime fiction of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s that served as the source material for many film noir features. These pulp novels were driven by graphic depictions of crime, loose women, and were adorned with lurid covers that typically featured a scantily clad woman in a vulnerable pose. They were also filled with incest, rough sex, and rape—the weird sex that would have been too taboo to even consider just a few decades earlier. In place of a broader overview, consider the following major works that were later translated into films under the Hays Code:

1.)   Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep: this story features young women who get caught up in a seedy sexual underground that involves drug use and is operated as a part of a pornography ring that serves a particularly “deviant” clientele. At one point Phillip Marlowe, the novel’s protagonist, poses as a homosexual to gain access to the secret pornography underground.

2.)   Dashiell Hammet’s The Thin Man: negative portrayal of homosexuals

3.)   Dashiell Hammet’s The Maltese Falcon: portrayal of a homosexual (possibly mixed-race) relationship between criminals—this portrayal was also negative.

While this list is exceptionally (and almost embarrassingly) brief, it illustrates two significant points: first, it helps to demonstrate the sexual themes that permeated the hardboiled crime fiction novels that Hollywood began to rely on; second, it helps show the failure of the Hays Code to completely eliminate these factors. In Howard Hawk’s version of The Big Sleep, Marlowe still poses as a homosexual to gain entrance to a dubious bookstore. In John Huston’s adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, the homosexuality of Joel Cairo may not be explicitly mentioned but is made clear by his stereotypical mannerisms—mannerisms that were prescribed by Hammet’s source text to identify Cairo as homosexual.[2]

Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon

            To be sure, there’s nothing actually weird about homosexuality, but in the context of when these films were made and the novels were written, any portrayal of homosexuality would not only challenge audiences but unsettle them. Further, the film adaptations of these works show the relative impotence of the Hays Code. Even the inference of “sexual perversion” was decried by the Code (Lewis 301). The Hays Code would have banned homosexual behavior, but each of these instances were circumvented by clever screen plays and directors that slipped these actions in while simultaneously making the protagonist appear more heterosexual, “masculine” and virile.  To illustrate this, consider the following scene from Hawks's The Big Sleep: Marlowe is accosted by an overly flirtatious young woman who works at a shop across the street from the (now implied) pornography front, and what is significant about this scene is that it appears near the scene where Marlowe pretends to be gay. This scene with the young girl does not exist in Chandler’s novel, but it does allow the film audience and the censors the assurance that Marlowe is very much a heterosexual man—the type that attractive young girls just have to throw themselves at. This more dominant moment in the film would have satisfied the code and allowed a certain segment of the audience to escape with their worldview unchallenged.

            While homosexual characters and themes may have been subdued under the Hays Code, the rape and rough sex of many pulp crime novels remained intact in film versions. In fact, in some cases instances of rough sex were, ironically, emphasized or even added as a result of the Code. The sex scene in Wilder’s Double Indemnity is a key example of this. Walter Neff forcefully grabs Phyllis and is squeezing her so hard that he hurts her; she alerts him to this fact, but he does not ease his grip. Instead, she submits, they have sex, and then plot the murder of her husband. This tense sexual relationship did not exist in James Cain’s novel. It was a product of Wilder and Raymond Chandler’s script, which was written to placate the Hays Code. This sort of double standard demonstrates not only the strangely flexible nature of the Code’s application, but it’s willingness to specifically be flexible in instances where heternormative sexual behavior is rewarded and women are either forced to submit themselves to men, or “cannot resist” the male protagonist.

            While the Hays Code may have necessitated some toning down of the source texts for many of Hollywood’s most famous noir films, later films were not bound by such restrictions. Films like Roman

Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes in Chinatown

Polanski’s Chinatown were a direct descendent of film noir and hardboiled crime fiction. Moreover, because the Hays Code did not restrict Chinatown, it was free to remain true to the sexual themes of the pulps. Chinatown was not based on a pre-existing novel, but Robert Towne’s original script held true to all of the tropes and themes of the hardboiled detective story. As a result of the pulp influences and the absence of the Code, Towne’s script did not have to hint at sexual deviance, it made it plain and disturbing. Chinatown offers viewers not just a bland, sexual relationship between the detective protagonist, Jake Gittes, and his femme fatale/damsel in distress, Evelyn Mulwray; it complicates that relationship with the introduction of Katherine Cross. The character of Katherine drags the viewer down into a disturbing world of incest, rape, and pedophilia amongst Los Angeles’s most powerful people. The incest subplot, while unsettling in the film, is precisely in keeping with the tropes of the hardboiled crime story and secures Chinatown’s place as child of hardboiled crime fiction and the noir genre—if not a noir film properly.

Hardboiled stories were often written for an audience that was increasingly disillusioned with the world around them, and the audience was also one that craved stories of sensational crimes—a trend that newspapers had been capitalizing on for nearly a century. These were also the same readers who would gobble up crime and horror comic books from newsstands before Estes Kefauver and the Comics Code Authority had them eliminated. The pulp audience was certainly a literate and thoughtful one, but not one that would be inspired by the then ancient mores of Victorian literature. While the demands of this audience would not be fully accommodated by Hollywood and the Hays Code, the Hays Code was simply not respected enough to be fully enforced. Hollywood would not allow audiences to fully experience film versions of the violent and sexually driven novels and pulps they were reading, but Hollywood could not completely deny audiences of their demands either. There was too much money to be made. Instead, directors like Wilder, Hawks, and Huston, worked around the Hays Code to give audiences what they demanded while at least feigning fealty to the suspect Code. It is not necessarily troublesome that audiences were drawn to sensational crime stories or sex, even “unusual” sex—these are themes prevalent in all forms of literature and storytelling throughout history. What is troublesome, at least for modern viewers, is that audiences were drawn to stories that carried themes where homosexuality was treated as deviant behavior and women were treated as nigh-succubae or vessels for male sexual desire or perpetual victims of rape or other sexual violence. The Hays Code not only looked past its own guidelines regarding these issues, but also in many cases, encouraged them.

---

[1] This is further supported by the fact that the code was popularly referred to as the Hays Code because of William Hays, who was a Presbyterian elder. In the 1920s ‘30s, Hays’s Presbyterianism would have assuredly led him to consider homosexuality sexual perversion. Furthermore, until 1974, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) held homosexuality as a mental disorder, again assuring that the “sexual perversion” of the Hays Code included homosexuality.

[2] It is worth noting that many cite Cairo as the first clear homosexual character portrayed in American film. 

Film Noir--Origins and Visual Style

Here's the slide show of visual origins and terms from our first class. Further here's a link to a glossary of some of the terms: lighting and mise-en-scene (scroll down to the term).

For Tourneur Panelists

I was the first to sign up for Cat People because I'm a big fan.  I also love Near Dark so when Professor Kaufman said he needed panelists, I switched.  For those that are on either of the Jacques Tourneur panels, I'm willing to loan out my copy of his biography, The Cinema of Nightfall.  It has individual sections for each of his films.  Let me know if you're interested.

In Defense of Phyllis

This isn't entirely a defense of Phyllis, but her actions do derive in part from her sense that as a woman she doesn't have available to her the same options as Walter or her husband.  Note Walter's description of his typical breakfast when they're in his apartment--squeezing a grapefruit or going down to the corner drugstore counter.  She says it sounds heavenly.  Not how everyone would react.  Clearly, domestic life is not what she aspired to, yet it was more or less the only option offered.
    It's an example of how the Production Code complicated the noir characters.  The fictional Phyllis is more simply a psychotic killer.  While some might still see her as such in the film, her sense of entrapment that drives her extreme actions comes through more clearly.  It's the same sense that makes those grocery story scenes so eerie as she assures Walter their in it together "straight down line," more a threat than an observation.
  Walter is bored by the anonymous life Phyllis finds so appealing.  He is intrigued by the opportunity her predicament with Dietrichson presents--an opportunity to "crook" the system and get away with it.  Phyllis aim is a more personal one--to find a life she doesn't see offered, a life like Walter's--one that she would kill for, and does!
  We might say that Phyllis' aim is to make others feel her experience of the world.  That look on Walter's face in the drugstore, when he realizes it really will be "straight down the line" says he does know what it feels like not to call the shots.

Blog Comments

To continue our discussion for Double Indemnity, post to the comments of the panel.  Questioners should post their questions even if we discussed them already.  They'll provide us something to refer to and offer opportunity for further comment.  To post a comment, click on the No Comments link (which is an observation rather than an imperative).  It probably should read Add a Comment.

Fred MacMurray Most Underrated Actor

Bio

He was born to Maleta and Frederick MacMurray on August 30, 1908, Kankakee, Illinois. They moved to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin where he stayed until college.   His parents divorced when he was five and he stayed living with his mother.  He had a passion for painting that started at the young age of ten when he won a drawing contest. Living in Chicago as a kid, he was able to take classes at The Art Institute and seriously thought of becoming a commercial artist. He graduated high school lettering in 10 different athletic sports

Fred played several instruments, but mostly known for the saxophone. His influence of music came from his father who was a concert violinist.  Fred was offered a full scholarship to Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He played in several bands, eventually leaving school before he graduated. He recorded a song, as lead vocalist, for the Gus Arnheim Orchestra in 1930 and went on to Broadway.  MacMurray’s first film debut was as an extra in Girls Gone Wild in 1928. He wouldn’t get his first leading role until he stared in Grand Old Girl in 1935, just one year after signing a contract with Paramount in 1934.

Enjoyed one of the longest careers in American filmmaking due to his all-purpose good looks.

Even though MacMurray was said to prefer the more serious dramatic type roles to the comedies, many people found him unbelievable in those dramatic roles.   He was too innocent and wholesome looking to be believable as the horrific, deceitful, ruthless antagonist. However, Billy Wilder made this work to their advantage in Double Indemnity and The Apartment.  Those films rely on unexpectedly “nice guy” who turns out to be ruthless.  It’s meant to catch the audience by surprise and unnerve them. 

Trivia

Artist C.C. Beck created the comic book superhero Captain Marvel, in 1939, using Fred MacMurray as his inspiration for the character design.

Fred MacMurray was first person (and last) honored as a Disney legend for his many roles in Disney movies.

MacMurray and his wife, June Haver,  established the MacMurray Ranch in Northern California’s Russian River Valley in 1941 where they raised

Prize-winning Aberdeen Angus cattle.