Showing posts with label Louis Calhern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louis Calhern. Show all posts

Devil's Doorway (1950)

Devil's Doorway (1950) is a returning veteran race relations injustice on the range and one man against the system social commentary action adventure wild western movie with film noir leanings, and one that is significantly and surprisingly better than its black face or whatever and inappropriate Native American portrayals this represents, which are not well done and which might be off-putting for any modern kinda film observers.

For example, Native Americans have never and would never refer to themselves as 'Indians', as they do here, even a patent absurdity in 1950.

Anthony Mann’s Devil’s Doorway (1950) is a significant yet underappreciated western film that offers a haunting portrayal of racial discrimination in the American West. 

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

The Blackboard Jungle (1955) is the ultimate mid-1950s juvenile delinquent scare movie and features Glenn Ford in one of his best roles as a teacher in a violent urban school for boys. 

Within The Blackboard Jungle (1955) are both significant lies and truths, as well as discussion of racism underpinned by the thin air of misogyny, and an uncomfortable sexism which is constant enough to form an almost separate movie. Unlike in noir in toto, and this is not noir, there are no interesting roles for women in this man's, man's, man's, man's movie.

Notorious (1946)

Notorious (1946) by Alfred Hitchcock is an espionage romance story, with film noir overtones.

The picture stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, with support from Claude Rains, and is a favourite among Alfred Hitchcock lovers for its mature cinematic portrayal of a love affair. 

The film noir overtones that characterise Notorious are best illustrated in the dark forces that negatively affect Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) in the form of alcohol and poison, both of which cause her hallucinations that are shared with the viewers of the film through noir photography, fully developed by this stage in the film noir cycle, as is the theme of the ineffective marriage, which is fully played out between Bergman and Rains.