Straight Down the Line: Into Film Noir

Crime Wave (1954) was directed by Andre De Toth & scripted by Crane Wilbur. Despite some gaping holes (what do you expect for a B picture shot in 13 days?) there’s much to love here: b&w 1950s Los Angeles, Sterling Hayden’s fast, clipped verbiage, Tim Carey as the usual nut job. And Jay Novello as the perpetually-sozzled, disgraced doctor turned compassionate veterinarian. Novello usually played nervous little guys with a comic edge but here, thanks to De Toth’s penchant for casting against type, he really brings depth to this beleaguered underworld sawbones.

Disillusionment & paranoia descended on the American Dream in the 40s just as the titular characters in The Killers (1946) descend on the Swede as he lay in the shadows passively awaiting his fate.

The Killers was directed by Robert Siodmak, one of a handful of German emigre directors that brought expressionism to Hollywood to add to the black & white rain-soaked visuals that came to be known as “film noir”.

Based on a Hemingway story (1927) of the same name, which is also thought to be the inspiration for Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper, The Killers delivers the existential goods that defined the postwar noir sensibility. One finds many such nighthawks & diners in the noir landscape; they go hand in hand with the bleak outlook of their cynical heroes & disaffected anti-heroes.

As the Swede (Burt Lancaster) says in the opening sequence: “I did something wrong…once.” That’s all it takes to doom an otherwise good man, his downfall often aided by a bad woman (Ava Gardner, in this case), who’s just trying to stay alive in a hostile man’s world. It’s a story audiences couldn’t get enough of as they grappled with the wide-spread angst & despair following & preceding World War 2 & the Cold War, respectively.

The Lineup (1958): I love this movie if only for two of its stars: Eli Wallach (who could do no wrong as an actor) and San Francisco. I also like Robert Keith in his role, despite the bad impression I have of him. In the late 20s, Keith got married to an aspiring actress ten years his junior. She was Peg Entwistle and he convinced her that he'd never been married before, although he had: twice. He also kept secret from her the fact that he had a six year old son (Brian Keith, future star of the TV sitcom Family Affair).

Peg divorced Robert a couple of years later, citing domestic cruelty. In 1932, she jumped to her death, soaring from the "H" in the Hollywood sign. Keith had married a fourth time by then and didn't seem to care much about the third Mrs Keith coming to her tragic end.

In The Line Up, Keith's character is Julian. He has a line of dialgoue (written by Stirling Silliphant) that really stood out for me. Julian and his pschycopathic minions have discovered that a certain young seaman is trying to cheat them on a heroin deal. So Dancer (Wallach) kills the sailor/cheater. Asked by their getaway driver if they really needed to off the kid, Julian replies: “To live outside the law, you must eliminate dishonesty.”

For years I've occasionally pondered a lyric in Bob Dylan’s song Absolutely Sweet Marie: “To live outside the law you must be honest.”

When I heard Keith utter his line, the meaning of the lyric became crystal clear. Although, I've yet to ask Dylan if that's exactly what he meant and also whether he'd ever watched The Line Up. I'm betting that he did.

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