You Only Live Once (1937)

Posted on July 8, 2015 by 4 Star Films

There are two types of lover-on-the-run narratives. There’s the Bonnie and Clyde/Gun Crazy extravaganza full of shoot-outs and bloodshed. Then you have the more sensitive approach of a film like They Drive By Night. You Only Live Once fits this second category thanks to two bolstering performances by Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sydney. Fonda is forever known for his plain, naturalistic delivery full of humanity. He has that quality as 3-time loser Eddie Taylor certainly, but he also injects the role with a somewhat uncharacteristic rage. In many ways, he has a right to be angry at a world that so easily writes him off and is so quick to pronounce guilt. There is very little attempt to rehabilitate the reprobate and Taylor is an indictment of that.

Secretary Jo Graham (Sylvia Sydney) is positively beaming the day they are releasing her boyfriend Taylor because he is finally getting the second chance he deserves. A glorious marriage follows soon after until reality breaks into the lovers’ paradise. Few people aside from Father Dolan and a few forward thinkers are willing to give Taylor grace. He is prematurely fired from his job and has no way to make the payments on the house that his wife has been sprucing up for him. Adding insult to injury, a brazen bank robbery is committed which he is wrongly accused of. It’s back to the clink and then the electric chair.

Jo is beside herself and Taylor is angered at the way the law deals with him. This justice is the most unjust imaginable, and he is about to pay the price. But Jo desperately gets him help and he tries to make a break for it.

That’s what makes a wire proclaiming his innocence all the more ironic because he will have none of it. He takes a man’s life and now his acquittal goes down the drain as quickly as he got it since he has a murder to his name. Eddie and Jo go off on the road together, looting banks and surviving the best they can with their newborn son. This is not two joyriding youngsters trying to get rich without an honest day’s work. Fritz Lang develops a more complex story with people who tried to live by the rules and found they were dealt an unfair hand.

As one of Lang’s earliest works in America, you can see some remnants of German Expressionism exported here with foggy clouds of mist engulfing the screen at times. His tale also has an interesting ambiguity suggesting that crime is not always black and white. Perhaps it has less to say about the moral degenerates or corrupt individuals in our society and more about the faulty structures that our justice system often get built around. It’s mind-boggling to think that this film came soon after the Depression meaning the bitter taste of those years was still fresh in peoples’ mouths. Nevertheless, this film is an interesting crime-filled character study.

4/5 Stars

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Posted on July 6, 2015 by 4 Star Films

When I first saw the work of Douglas Sirk, I was immediately struck by how well it seemed to personify 1950s Hollywood. All That Heaven Allows (1955) is little different in its opulence and superficial soap opera tonalities. Except for this one, at times, feels a little like it should be a part of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. Perhaps it glides a slightly more interesting line between high society country club members and quintessential middle America.

The two alternatives are contrasted in our screen couple played by Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson.

Cary Scott (Wyman) is a well to do, middle-aged widow with two grown kids off at school. She is often lonely and always sensible when it comes to the life decisions she makes. After all, she doesn’t want the local gossip blabbing about her life to all their society friends.

That changes rather gradually thanks to her seasonal gardener and professional tree-trimmer Ron Kirby (Hudson). He is a different sort of spirit who seems to be content with nature and his place in it as nurturer. Their acquaintance begins over a harmless cup of coffee and turns into an excursion to his humble abode. Over time, Cary is introduced to Ron’s brand of friends, all charming, down-to-earth folk who live life to the fullest without worrying about wealth or societal pressures. This is what she has been looking for, and he is the man she needs. So when Ron proposes marriage she readily accepts.

Now comes the task of putting it before the kids and then showing Ron to the local snarks. The socialites are no different with their sniggering and pointed remarks. There is no mercy for Cary and Ron. In fact, they are appalled by such a scandalous romance. The children who normally are rational and kind, do not mince words with their mother. Ned talks about the family honor, the legacy of their father, and their home. He cannot bear for his mother to supposedly throw all that away. Kay, on her part, is always getting caught up in psychoanalysis, but this time all rationale goes out the window after her boyfriend breaks up with her. Under this built-in pressure, Cary reluctantly breaks off their marriage, mostly for the sake of the children.

Except she is never quite the same and never feels like she did with Ron. Cary is resigned to staying in her lavish home, while reluctantly accepting the newest form of modern entertainment — a television. Christmas time is especially hard when she runs into Ron, but then the kids come home. That’s when she realizes her grave error and what comes next is exactly what you expect, with a few small diversions. Cary turns back to Ron, who has been in a funk of his own. Following an accident that was induced by Cary’s presence, Ron is bedridden and Cary rushes to his aid. This is the life she was meant for no matter what society says of her.

It’s pretty mushy, weepy stuff in a sense. That’s the superficial level of second-rate romance and picture-perfect technicolor. In fact, All That Heaven Allows is visually beautiful in a sickening sort of way. The town is too pristine, the seasons too perfect, the snow too puffy. And yet it all seems to be an impeccable supplement to Sirk’s moral drama. Ironically, this is not a moral tale about unbridled love between a woman and her younger lover. That would make complete sense. Instead, Sirk subverts that wonderfully, by suggesting the weight of the blame is on society and the peer pressure that permeates the upper crust.

Even if this film is a little too syrupy in its sweetness, I can manage a spoonful or two because there is a greater meaning to this frivolity. All That Heaven Allows is certainly an acquired taste, but it’s worth taking a chance on.

4/5 Stars

While the City Sleeps (1956)

Posted on July 4, 2015 by 4 Star Films

While the City Sleeps has a brilliant cold open followed by a pounding title sequence, courtesy of Fritz Lang, that brings to mind a bit of Diabolique and Psycho. The rest of the film turns into a case to find the wanted lipstick murderer (based on a real killer), but that only holds part of our attention.

When newspaper magnate Mr. Kyne dies suddenly, his begrudging son Walter (Vincent Price) takes over intent on shaking up the status quo and putting his mark on the company. He soon turns three men against each other as they desperately fight for the new position of executive director. The first is veteran newspaper editor John Day Griffith (played by the always memorable character actor Thomas Mitchell). The second candidate is chief of the wire service Mark Loving (George Sanders) who is Griffith’s main competitor. Finally, in the third spot is Harry Kritzer who happens to have a secret ace in the hole. Each of them is tasked with finding out the real scoop about the serial killer, and it turns into a real tooth and claw ordeal. Within the glass cubicles, everything can be seen, but not everything is heard and that’s where the secrets get disclosed.

On the outside looking in, so to speak, is star TV reporter Edward Mobley (Dana Andrew), who agrees to help his friend Griffith by doing a little digging around about the murderer. He gets some tips from a cop friend Lt. Kaufmann (Howard Duff), and Mobley tries to smoke the killer out on air. However, it leads to the potential endangerment of his fiancée Nancy, who also happens to be Loving’s secretary. Loving has his love directed towards a female reporter named Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino), who attempts to needle Mobley for info. At the same time, the killer is on the move once more, with Nancy being an obvious target. Mr. Kritzer’s own romantic entanglements get him in trouble because he is seeing Kyne’s beautiful but detached wife Dorothy (Rhonda Fleming). Mildred finds out about them and they have some talking to do. Mobley also has some making up to do with Nancy after she finds out Mildred came to see him. It’s a big mess.

Mobley juggles everything from his love life to the big scoop and they apprehend the killer, but things at Kyne’s don’t wind up exactly the way they expected. Mobley looks to move on from the paper with Nancy, but even he cannot get away that easily.

While the City Sleeps is an underrated tale from Lang that is positively stacked with big names. Its pacing can be deliberate at times, but it is just as much an indictment of journalism as it is a thriller. The office is a web of deception with so many interconnections between these work factions. Those you would normally expect to be scrupulous seem to give up their honor in the face of this new promotion. In a sense, Mobley seems to be outside of this fray and yet he cannot help but get involved in it. It doesn’t help that nothing turns out the way it’s supposed to. Everybody seems to gain something, but nobody really wins the game.

I must say it was great to see Dana Andrews in one of these leading roles again and although their roles were smaller, Ida Lupino and George Sanders still were a deliciously stuffy and corrupt pair. I was never really a fan of Vincent Price due to the roles he normally plays, but I was inclined to like Howard Duff (Lupino’s real-life husband) in his turn as the policemen. It goes without saying that Rhonda Fleming is positively beautiful, but she also cannot be trusted. I guess that applies to about every character in this film. It’s certainly a cynical world out there that Lang paints, where the killer might be caught, but corruption is never fully quelled.

4/5 Stars

Review: The Big Heat (1953)

Posted on July 2, 2015 by 4 Star Films

The Big Heat is not a noir where the darkness comes from the shadowy visuals, but from within its characters themselves. In fact, some of these individuals are so subtle in their corruption that it easily gets overshadowed. Homicide cop Dave Bannion is, rather ironically, the straight-arrow trying to do what is right, and he becomes the most vengeful character in Fritz Lang’s film. It’s a subversion of the typical noir arc because his greatest help ultimately comes from the former femme fatale. That’s not how it’s supposed to happen, but then again a lot of things happen a little differently in The Big Heat.

The film opens and within a second a man has shot himself and left a confession on his desk. The cues tell us that he’s a cop and he’s just committed suicide. His wife comes downstairs strangely composed and shuffles through the pages he has written. She goes to the phone, not to call the police, but she talks to a third party. We quickly forget what’s she’s done, but the fact is Mrs. Duncan represents the corruption that reigns supreme in this film. She’s used a juicy piece of blackmail to receive large payoffs from someone and she’s not the only sellout.

Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a cop by day and a family man at night with a loving wife and a beautiful little girl. By convention, he is supposed to be the moral compass of this film — the emblem of good conquering evil. He takes on the straightforward case of Officer Duncan’s death, but it gets convoluted when a B-girl named Lucy Chapman calls him up to say she knew the deceased, and he would never kill himself. Initially, Bannion takes little heed of this girl, because she is hardly as respectable as Mrs. Duncan, or so society says.

He gets pressure from his superior Wilks to lay off, but Bannion is discontent with loose ends, especially when he receives news that the Chapman girl has been brutally murdered. This can’t all be all coincidence, and he begins sniffing out the truth like a bloodhound. Bannion leads us into the home of this empire of crime literally. He confronts local businessman/crime boss Mike Laganna, who he accuses of involvement in the corruption. Things are beginning to heat up, and they start to infiltrate the sanctity of his home life. The dark recesses of the noir world can never be subdued, and Bannion dives deeper into the labyrinth that is created by his own obsessive vendetta. He has no tolerance for his colleagues who don’t take a stand, in favor of their pensions. He can’t stand tight-lipped locals who give him no help and most of all he hates Laganna’s guts.

At the local shady nightclub “The Retreat,” Bannion has his first run-in with the hired thug Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). Afterward Vince’s girl Debby is genuinely impressed by Bannion’s methods, but he will not give her the time of day. He expects her to be the same superficially ditsy dame that we have all seen before. Hardly a femme fatale, but still there is the potential to be deadly. The one character who seems to conform to the stereotype is Stone, and yet he is even more brutal than most, burning girls with cigarette butts and splashing scalding coffee on Debby’s face.

Bannion gets to one of the other hired guns named Larry and both Stone and Laganna decide that something must be done to stop Bannion in his tracks. The obvious target is his little girl, but this time the family life prevails over the noir world. His family and colleagues rally around him and yet Bannion is not done with his obsession.

In fact, it is Debby who actually finishes off Bannion’s work by paying a visit to Mrs. Chapman and then Vince. Bannion arrives soon after to reprimand Vince, but Debby has already done the dirty work. The nightmare is over and everything that is good and right comes to the forefront. Debby proves her allegiance, the criminals are put away, and Bannion gets a new position with the homicide department. But underlying this seemingly happy ending is still a sense of tension. The film ends as Bannion heads out on a new homicide case with the cycle continuing and it seems like he will never be free of it.

The world will continue ripping away the ones he loves. Before he knows it, he will be left with only his personal vengeance to drive his future. Bannion very easily could cross the line between righteousness and corruption. He already almost strangled two characters and was not opposed to slugging it out with others. It’s only a matter of time before he totally blows his cool and collected exterior. It’s a dark assumption, but then again that is a lot of what film-noir is. Fritz Lang seems to get this and that’s what makes his characters here so powerful because he knows that the root of all evil can be in everyone.

4.5/5 Stars

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

Posted on June 28, 2015 by 4 Star Films

The Spiral Staircase plays out like an Agatha Christie murder mystery with a moody, old mansion acting as the backdrop and numerous individuals filling out the cast. It seems to be some type of gothic-noir hybrid, with its ghostly interiors, torrential thunderstorms, and creaky shutters. However, with director Robert Siodmak at the helm, I am inclined to call it noir, not just because of his pedigree, but it certainly has the atmosphere and dim interiors that are expected of the genre.

The action opens at a movie hall after a woman is murdered by an unseen killer. But most of the actual drama takes place in the before mentioned mansion of the sickly Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore). She resides with her son Steven and step-son Professor Albert Warren (George Brent) who never see eye to eye. Nearly on her deathbed, Mrs. Warren distrusts her nurse and only allows the mute girl Helen (Dorothy McGuire) to even help her. The rest of the cast is rounded out by servants, a secretary named Blanche (Rhonda Fleming) who Steven loves, and the constable and a young doctor who cares about Helen. It’s a wide array of figures and we quickly begin to analyze them for any hint of killer tendencies.

In fact, Helen is our main character and we experience much of the film from her perspective. The truth of the matter is that all the girls who were killed had some sort of defect, so the line of reasoning is that Helen might be next in line. It seems all too possible with a pair of mysterious eyes constantly watching from the shadows, but Helen does not heed Mrs. Warren’s advice to flee.

The film ultimately spirals into darkness as the killer takes one victim and looks for another. Helen must protect herself, while also confronting her past where the source of her muteness lies. Although simple in conception, The Spiral Staircase is no less an engaging mystery. It is not the best from Siodmak either, but Dorothy McGuire gives an expressive performance that deliverers so much heart and feeling without the use of words.

However, the film does ultimately allow her to find her inner voice in the midst of all the silence. She finally conquers the fear in the moment when it is most harrowing. Although her role is rather minor, Rhonda Fleming is as strikingly beautiful as ever. It’s a rather expected resolution, but there are enough quirks and twists to makes things enjoyable to the end. It goes without saying that gothic noir most definitely should be a thing if it isn’t already.

4/5 Stars

Late Spring (1949)

Posted on June 25, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Late Spring is a film that I found in some ways more rewarding than Tokyo Story, another acclaimed classic from Yasujiro Ozu. Both films share a few of his trademarks. They are home dramas with basic, everyday plots, termed Shomin-geki. Also exhibited are a stationary camera and low camera angles that Ozu often used to focus on his characters while sitting. In this way, he invented the quintessentially Japanese viewpoint known as the “tatami shot.” We see it most certainly in Late Spring as the daughter Noriko interacts with her widowed father or when they have friends over in their home. It may look somewhat similar to Tokyo Story, but it does differ in subject matter.

Late Spring is a film about fathers and daughters. Marriage and divorce. All the things that make up a life that remain the same whether you’re in modern America or post-war Japan. Noriko is a pretty young woman who is devoted to her aging father through thick and thin. He likes having her around and she likes being there for him.

It’s the culture, namely aunts and friends, who tell Norkio that she must get married. She’s 27 years old, and she needs to find a husband before it’s too late. Her father won’t be around forever. She’ll need to make a new life for herself. But Noriko is content with not listening to the voices trying to sway her. Only when her father talks to her about marriage does she finally begin to listen. He makes conversation about getting remarried and encourages her to think about an arranged marriage that her aunt has waiting for her.

We never meet this man who supposedly looks like Gary Cooper, but Noriko seems to genuinely like him. And yet there still is something that isn’t quite right. In Japan there is great importance in “reading the air,” and it seems like some of the characters in Ozu’s film fail at this or they see only what they want to see.

In the end, Noriko gets married and it should be no surprise because it was what was ultimately expected of her. Her father, on the other hand, acknowledges to a friend that he had no intention of getting remarried, it was only to prompt Noriko. Professor Somiya took on a great sacrifice in the eyes of society and goes home alone.

This is a bittersweet tale that is surprisingly funny on many occasions, but it is also topped off with human tragedy. Not death or dying, but something potentially worse in loneliness and discontentment. It is only a thought, but it seems like Noriko and her father would have both been happy with the status quo. However, their sensibilities and society said otherwise, so they acted as they were expected to. From this simple drama comes one of the most powerful films on father-daughter relationships ever.

I must admit, at first, I really was not fond of Chishu Ryu’s character, but over the course of the story, he grew on me. As for Setsuko Hara, she is an amazing example of kindness and servility, but also the undisputed muse of Yasujiro Ozu. Late Spring also plays off the conflict between the old and new not to mention the traditional Japan and western culture. It’s not a blatant presence, but the allusion to Coca-Cola and Gary Cooper reminds us that this is a post-war Japan still recuperating from an awful war. That’s the backdrop of this film and its part of what makes Ozu’s human drama all the more striking. Despite, where it is situated in the historical context, Late Spring is a timeless film giving calculated insight into human relationships.

4.5/5 Stars

Bay of Angels (1963)

Posted on June 20, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Bay of Angels is quite different than anything else I have seen by Jacques Demy. Similar to Lola (1961) it is shot in starkly beautiful black and white and it has a kind of love story, but it lacks the music or general whimsy that often characterized Demy’s later works.

This film finds its subject matter in gambling, and it follows one woman’s obsession and another man’s growing interest in roulette. At first, Jean is a rather bored young bank employee, who is coaxed by a colleague to take up gambling.

Initially, he is skeptical, looking down at the pastime as a frivolous waste of time and money, after all, he is a sensible young man. However, he parts with the sensibilities that his father would have for him and instead take a few weeks of vacation to spend some time in the casinos of Nice and Monte Carlo.

Soon he gets bitten by the gambling bug and he’s hooked. He finds an equally enthused companion in Jackie (Jeanne Moreau), who has had a far longer history with roulette. Jean falls for her very quickly and Jackie holds onto him like her good luck charm. Their many days spent in the casinos are constantly fluctuating roller coasters of luck. Once gambler’s fallacy has taken hold it’s hard to kick the habit, and Jackie constantly blows her money. If not at the wheels, it gets spent on fine dining and clothes. She has no restraint when it comes to spending and Jean indulges her willfully. It gets so bad that Jean begins to get as reckless as his companion, and he cannot bear to leave her, although she really does have a problem.

The formally reserved persona of Jean becomes violent and passionate for Jackie’s affection, but she’s not quite as ready to give it out. The ending felt a bit forced, but yet again Demy delivers a story that is riddled with feelings of love and passion.

It is an interesting observation that his male characters pale in comparison with his female leads ranging from Anouk Aimee, Jeanne Moreau, and Catherine Deneuve. These ladies who are always the object of affection, steal the screen with their mesmerizing performances. In fact, Claude Mann has a rather slumping posture, a glum face, and not particularly good looks. Thus, in contrast, Jeanne Moreau looks like an especially alluring beauty, who seems at home in gaudy gambling houses billowing with smoke or seaside promenades.

Bay of Angels is supposedly the place that brings the pair luck, but the reality is that this film is all about chance. Not fate so much as Demy usually explores, but a topic that is still somewhat similar. It is also a film that makes me never want to play roulette. I do not want the mundane lifestyle of Jean, but I would like to find my excitement somewhere else. I suppose that’s what made Moreau’s character so fascinating because her obsession was so great and yet she simply accepted it and thought little of it. But it drove her life.

“We’re partners in a game. Let’s leave it at that.” ~ Jackie

4/5 Stars

Brute Force (1947)

Posted on June 12, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Potentially one of the weaker Jules Dassin films noir, Brute Force is still a worthwhile film exploring the dynamics of a prison during the 1940s. The inspiration comes from the rebellion at Alcatraz in 1946 and this film was shocking at the time for the amount of violence it portrayed. It stars Burt Lancaster as the glowering leader of a group of prisoners in block K17. His main antagonist and the villain of the entire yard is the authoritarian Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn in an especially icy role).

The story follows the inmates as they make due with prison life and bide their time waiting for parole. However, Joe Collins, who is fresh off a spell of solitary confinement, seems bent on escape. The prison warden is an older fellow struggling to keep tempers from boiling over. The likable but often inebriated doctor (Art Smith) can see the writing on the wall. Things are reaching the end of the line if Munsey continues to hike up his tactics that are making the men resent him more and more every day. It’s positively a powder keg and it’s not going to be a pretty sight if the pressures get to be too much.

The entirety of the film takes place within the confines of the prison except for a couple flashbacks as four men recall the women they left outside in the real world. They are played by Anita Colby, Ella Raines, Yvonne De Carlo and Ann Blyth respectively, reflecting the hope, memories, and loved ones who are pulling at these men and ultimately led them to get into trouble. Perhaps it’s a stretch, but you might even be able to call them the femme fatales in an otherwise very male-centric film.

One man hangs himself afterward from Munsey and another gets it for causing problems for Joe. Neither of these men is looking to stand down anytime soon as Joe cautiously begins enacting plans of escape with another prisoner named Gallagher (Charles Bickford). Munsey continues to hound prisoners for information while halting all privileges.

Ultimately, the finale turns into the most electrifying moment of the film, while simultaneously Munsey is made the new warden and Collins puts his plan in action. Guards are waiting for him and his crew, but Gallagher has plans of his own in the compound. It leads to a handful of explosions, endless mayhem, and more than a few deaths. This is what happens when you use brute force.

4/5 Stars

Force of Evil (1948)

Posted on June 3, 2015 by 4 Star Films

“This is Wall Street… and today was important because tomorrow – July Fourth – I intended to make my first million dollars. An exciting day in any man’s life. Temporarily, the enterprise was slightly illegal. You see I was the lawyer for the numbers racket” ~ Joe Morse

Not in recent memory has a film left such a different taste in my mouth. Force of Evil has all the trappings of a thoroughly engrossing noir crime film. There’s the crooked lawyer Joe Morse (John Garfield), looking to get ahead by helping a top level gangster named Tucker take over the numbers racket in New York. There’s his estranged older brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) wanting nothing to do with his brother’s dirty money. It’s a classic Cain and Able type conflict. Add realistic location shooting inter-cut with voice-over, and a David Raksin score to make a real winner.

Yet Force of Evil is a dangerous film to take at face value because on that level alone it is highly entertaining. However, director and screenwriter Abraham Polonsky created something special here at only 78 minutes in length. His film has a certain rhythm that is hard to pinpoint. John Garfield especially delivers his lines impeccably, drifting in and out of common everyday jargon and moral convictions. It’s a slightly higher level of dialogue that deserves more digestion and thought. He even gives a taxi cab soliloquy that gives On the Waterfront a run for its money.

As a big picture, the plot makes sense for the most part. Joe is on the verge of making millions on the Fourth of July, and he wants to cut his brother in on it. But his brother works one of the smaller rackets which is bound to be pushed out. He has his own sense of morality, where he can bear what he does but not what Joe will hand him.

Leo reluctantly agrees to join the big operation out of necessity until things get way too involved, and this time Joe is in a place where he has to get out himself, with no way of protecting his brother. His resolve to watch over his brother is to no avail when the Ficco Gang tries to push their way into the racket. Meanwhile, Joe still finds time to flirt with the innocent and proper Doris Lowry (Beatrice Pearson), the former secretary of Leo, who is in complete juxtaposition with Mrs. Tucker (Marie Windsor), who Morse keeps company with initially.

However, this whole mess is constantly being complicated. There is “Freddie” Bauer (Howland Chamberlain), the nervous fellow who used to work with Leo and now, with the big takeover, is looking to blow the whistle on whoever he can to stay out of the fray. There’s the police who seem intent on getting their hands on everybody they can and not showing favoritism towards anyone. There’s Leo who is righteously indignant while also taking his brother’s offer of a better position begrudgingly. There’s Doris who is in all ways sensible and yet still falls for Joe, not in your typical passionate way, but it still happens nonetheless. There’s the line between legitimate business and criminal activity that is constantly be zig-zagged.

Finally, there is Joe who deserves the greatest amount of scrutiny. John Garfield apparently could not pinpoint his character’s deal initially either, but he must have figured it out because he nailed it. It’s probably his greatest performance. He’s the kind of guy who blows the whistle on his own brother in order to help him in his own way. It doesn’t quite make sense, and he seems so often blinded, but he keeps pushing forward in a vain attempt towards success. All the caustic words and aggressive come-ons don’t work. Ultimately, he has to come to reality. When Joe does, that’s when he realizes what he has started and what he has done to Leo. By that point, it’s nearly too late for him, and it’s most definitely too late for Leo.

4/5 Stars

Body Heat (1981)

Posted on June 1, 2015 by 4 Star Films

In his directorial debut, Lawrence Kasdan (screenwriter for Empire Strikes Back and Raiders) brought us a neo-noir burning with passion and positively dripping in sweat. Quite the combination indeed.

It opens with the seductively jazzy score, courtesy of John Barry, dancing over the credits. It brings to mind cool afternoons with cool drink in hand. The first shot we are met with is a man driving in his convertible, top down and shades up. He’s a cool and collected looking young man, but we know that there must be something lurking underneath all of this. This exterior is soon dropped and we are met with a reality that is heavy with humidity and sticky days.

Our protagonist is Ned Racine (William Hurt) who is a struggling lawyer working in Florida during an especially sweltering Florida heat wave. One indelible evening he has his first encounter with a beautiful, cool blonde named Matty (Kathleen Turner) whose temperature runs a little hotter than most. He makes a pass or two even after finding she is married, and she rejects his attempts at first. However, during a point of no return, the two give into their cravings and spiral into a passionate tryst. Their affair is fairly easy to keep hidden from Mr. Walker (Richard Crenna), but an old high school friend of Matty’s and Matty’s niece unwittingly find them out one way or another.

They’ve had enough of secrecy and Racine resolves they must kill Walker so that Matty might be freed and so she might also get money due to his impending death. Not satisfied with that, Matty wants to alter the will so she gets more. Racine is completely against that idea.

The night of the murder comes and they act it out with precision and Racine gets rid of the body. He finds out only afterward that Matty had a new will drawn up and he doesn’t like it one bit, but he is forced to play along. The prosecutor and police detective involved in the case (Ted Danson and J.A. Preston) happen to be friends with Ned through work. They spend many a sweaty afternoon chatting it up at the local diner. That’s what makes it hard when all the facts begin to pile up and slowly but surely Ned’s involvement becomes more suspect. His alibi and the degree of his relationship with Ms. Walker is being questioned.

Meanwhile, he and Matty must find a pair of glasses that might incriminate them. It becomes clear all too soon that things are not as they seem. Matty ultimately abandons Ned, and he winds up behind bars, happier without her. In one final revelation, he starts to put some of the pieces to together in prison. He’s a hot mess.

It’s difficult not to make comparisons between a film like this and classic noir such as Double Indemnity. In both films, there is a man who seems fully committed to going through with a crime, but it is really the woman who has the most to gain from the situation. Furthermore, Ned as the Walter Neff character has his Barton Keyes in the form of Lowenstein and Oscar, who are friends but also the ones who must bring him to justice. However, Body Heat can get away with more, such as sexuality and allowing certain crimes to go unpunished. It’s a rather surprising ending that is nonetheless very interesting.

Body Heat also has the cigarette prevalence of a film-noir (which Ted Danson comically will not take part in). It’s as if Lowenstein is the only character who realizes this habit is out of place in a world of 1980s sensibilities, not to mention crimes of passion. It was odd seeing Ted Danson in a pre-Cheers role gulping down ice tea after ice tea. Kathleen Turner and William Hurt were a good fit as the gorgeous siren and her partner in crime. They are two attractive people and yet that did not put them outside of the law as they would find out. Body Heat certainly wrenched up the heat a couple of notches and never let off. It positively burns with frenetic energy and unbridled passion.

4/5 Stars