Last night's film was "The Dark Man (1951), a Veddy Brrrittish thrill-ah about a kill-ah stalking his only witness. This is the kind of villain the Brits loved to depict in the 50s and early 60s: a tall, handsome but expressionless killer in a tailored black suit, wearing gloves and sometimes black plastic Michael Caine glasses from National Health, who drives a black sedan and uses a small automatic pistol, the kind with a retractable loader. It's an "efficient" gun and therefore (say it with me) Veddy Brrrittish, rather than a big-barrelled, John Wayne Colt 45 revolver. That would be way too vulgar. and the thing is, the British killer is always far more ruthless, determined and unstoppable than the one in an American movie, who is most often a cowboy or a psycho. The British guy is sometimes an assassin, but regardless of his professional status, he usually just wants money (probably to buy more suits, or he's saving up for a yacht), but he'll kill anyone in his way and in cold blood, dispassionately, whereas the American Colt 45 guy is always gonna rage and give a self-righteous speech. The killer in question tonight, as the movie opens, has taken a taxi to a remote country lane, one of those dirt roads out in the English boondocks from Robin Hood times. He has the driver stop at an old house, then he goes inside and robs an old guy of a ton of dough in his safe. Then he shoots him with his efficient, non-vulgar gun.
One of the dead man's friends goes to the police with some info. "He was a 'sepia' market (not black market) pork dealer." (there's a new one for ya, sepia market pork, get it cheap!). Well, that's a good tip, but Skeertlynd Yeeerd has a better one: a witness, a young lady who was riding by on her bike when the killer left the scene. She saw him shoot the taxi driver to eliminate him as a witness, but he saw her too, and now he's trying to track her down. The witness is a stage actress. She doesn't seem too worried about the man finding her. "He couldn't have seen my face, just as I didn't see his. we were too far apart." But the inspector on the case insists on protecting her anyway, and all of a sudden, they're going to the beach together, then smooching. It's not the smoothest romantic transition ever, and it feels like the filmmakers threw it in for I-don't-know-why, because thriller-fan butts were already in seats. No reason to toss in a romance if you didn't need it.
But it does set up the damsel-in-distress motif, even if it isn't well developed. The killer finally locates the actress in a boarding house and knocks her unconcho, then he pulls the gas line on the stove to make it look like a suicide. But a dog out back is barking up a storm, and the cops arrive just before she succumbs to the gas.
By now, several bystanders have seen the killer leave the house. They point the inspector in his direction, and the chase is on for the last 20 minutes. He runs out of real estate on - of all places - a Veddy Brrrittish Army artillery range. Howitzer squads are blasting away at targets and the killer, normally unflappable (and always besuited), is momentarily thrown for a loss. He does get his mojo back, but by now, the inspector has enlisted the Howitzer men, and the whole brigade, in a lengthwise arm-to-arm search for the killer. A shootout on the beach ends the movie.
It's good, but why the romance? Could've been tighter, and they could've given the killer at least a little more personality. He's a cipher in a suit. Still, Two Bigs for the excellent English location scenes and the ominous, in-your-face Rolls Royce grill shots coming at you on the highway that the Brits also love : the menacing auto, it's going to run you down! They love their giant grills, do the Brits. "The Dark Man" isn't classic but it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we had a murder mystery set against a race car test drive background that unfortunately wasn't high octane. I can find something to like like in almost any movie, as long as it's in black-and-white and runs no more than 95 minutes (60 is best). But, while I tried, there just wasn't much happening in "Night of the Prowler"(1962), a title that led me to expect a break-'n-enter plot, not a romantic triangle amid the attempted takeover of a race car company. See if you like it better than I did:
"Robert Langton" (Patrick Holt) owns the company. His top test driver is "Paul Conrad" (Bill Nagy). Langton and his wife are separated, she's seeing Conrad now, but it's amicable on all sides. There's a big test run of a new race car coming up, that, if successful, will mean a huge payoff for the company, a contract with an engine builder. But prior to the test, the chairman of the board is shot dead. Who did it and why? A note arrives from a guy named Layton, who used to work at the company as a mechanic but went to prison for embezzlement. Layton claims he's the killer, and he's just been paroled, so he could be. He says that the chairman was only the first victim; he's gonna get everyone at the company who testified against him. Paul Conrad is supposed to be next. Layton fixes the brakes on Conrad's test car, but Conrad has another appointment that day and gives the test to another driver, who is almost killed when the brakes fail.
Conrad and Langton are on alert now. We never see Layton, only a figure in a trench coat who runs around shooting at people, then runs off again, unexposed. An inspector is on the case, querying all and sundry, including Langton's wife and Conrad , who for a while you think have set something up with Layton to get rid of Robert Langton, the owner. He, in turn, also has a sometime girlfriend, much younger than him, who - in an obvious red herring move - he dumps unceremoniously and with maximum cynicism, totally out of character and of plot. Please Mr. Custer, I don't wanna go.
Listen; I just tried to make it sound interesting, and that is the basic plot. But the direction is phoned in. Much of the movie is about this lukewarm romantic triangle that isn't romantic nor triangular. There's a scene where Langton's separated wife and her boyfriend Conrad the test driver are kissing, and you can see that either the actors are uncomfortable with each other or the entire crew just wanted to get the shoot overwith. Seriously, watch that kiss. How many times have you seen a movie kiss that awkward? Well, anyhow.
Hey! How often do we have a movie we didn't care for? Less than 1% of the time? And I didn't dislike this flick, but there wasn't anything to hold me to it either. The whole thing felt phoned, as mentioned, and the schcript couldn't have been weaker. Grand Prix racing was a big deal in 1962, maybe someone thought it would make a good backdrop for some "hit your markers" performances by the "just put the check in the mail" cast. I want to, but I just can't give it Two Big Thumbs Up. Maybe you can, that's why I'm asking you to watch it, because this rarely happens. The picture is very good. ////
And that's all I know. Tonight's blogging music was "Still Life" by VDGG, my late night is again Handel's Aetsi Opera. I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment