What image or images from noir films come to mind as particularly striking and memorable?
Suzanne Lummis:
For irony and paradox—and pathos— I guess not much tops the pietà that closes Double Indemnity, where instead of mother and crucified son it’s Boss kneeling by his fallen Star Employee, insurance salesman Walter Neff, blood seeping from his bullet wound. Turns out it was a love story after all—the kind the Greeks called philia.
But also…
Another visual impression sticks with me, not the most striking in terms of lighting and composition but explosive in its day. Or, it would’ve been except for the sexual naivetë, of that era—after all, back then no explicit imagery in movies, advertising, early TV, and certain books had to be sold under the counter. A significant portion of the audience wouldn’t have fully grasped its implications. And some people would have. It must’ve set their hair on fire.
The image appears in The Big Combo, 1955, directed by Joseph Lewis and lit by master cinematographer John Alton.
Well-bred Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace) has fallen into the clutches of ruthless gangster and homme fatale manipulator of women, Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). She tells him she’s leaving—she hates him. All that changes, when after a fierce kiss he slides down and out of the frame of the camera.
Jean Wallace was married to the star, Cornell Wilde. Lewis made sure the husband was nowhere near the set when he shot this scene. When Cornell did see the film, he was furious—never spoke to Lewis again.
The image I’m talking about involves a few seconds while Mr. Brown’s off camera—Jean Wallace’s face.
Even though the Hays Production Code had begun to lose power in 1953, I wondered how Lewis got this past the censors in ’55. Well, it’s a great story, and proves that women weren’t the only ones who could be smart by playing dumb. The Production Code people were extremely displeased by what appeared to be a depiction of taboo erotica. Lewis pretended he didn’t know what they were talking about—‘Gee, she’s just thinking of the great kiss and, you’re right, I can’t see quite see Conte in the frame. I must’ve made a mistake…’ They believed him, and the several seconds of 35 mm film that has been called “arguably a cinematic first”—for Hollywood movies anyway—slipped through.
David Lehman
The only way to do this without cheating is to rely on memory and association. Very well, then . . . The dollars flying out of the open valise that falls out of the cart at the airport as Sterling Hayden watches aghast at the end of The Killing. . . the same actor dying as he drives back to the farm of his youth in The Asphalt Jungle . . .in the same movie, the boy and girl dancing the lindy with nickels for the jukebox provided by Sam Jaffe. . .the beach café in Central or South America where Bogart waits for Bacall while Jo Stafford sings “Too Marvelous for Words” at the end of Dark Passage. . . the hall of mirrors in the fun house at the end of The Lady from Shanghai. . .the boiling hot coffee that Lee Marvin hurls in Gloria Grahame’s face, and disfigures it, in The Big Heat. . . Richard Widmark’s fingers in another man’s pocket on the subway in Pickup on South Street. . and Jimmy Cagney consulting with his dead mother in White Heat as well as his triumphant “Top of the World” as he stands atop the burning tower. Hmm, I see that six of my choices are from the films’ final sequences.
And may I compliment you, Suzanne, on the “pietà” metaphor for the final tableau in Double Indemnity.
Gloria Graham is pictured bottom left; Jean Wallace, middle right. This is the eighth in a series of exchanges about noir. For previous posts, click here.
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