Today's Cinema Sunday is about a couple of films that fall in the continuum of what is called "film noir".
Our first film is from 1947 and features the future star of I Love Lucy vs. a serial killer.
The film is called Lured and yes, it stars Lucille Ball.
Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball) is an out of work American actress stuck in London and is now working as a taxi dancer.
Everyone in London is on edge due to the serial killing fiend known as the "Poet Killer".
So you should only be stressed out if you're a poet, right?
No, he's called the "Poet Killer" for his nasty habit of sending poems to the police when his latest victim turns up dead.
So he doesn't kill poets?
No, he just writes poems about the people he kills.
Would that make him a "Killer Poet"?
Oh shut up!
Sandra is concerned when her friend and fellow dancer Lucy goes missing. Sandra is afraid Lucy may be the latest victim of the "Poet Killer".
Wait! I'm confused! Is Lucy a poet? Why would the "Poet Killer" kill her?
OK, we've covered this: the killer sends a poem to Scotland Yard after his latest victim turns up,
Still that makes him a "Killer Poet".
Shut up!
So Sandra goes to the police and meets up with Scotland Yard Inspector Harley Temple who's working the case. He believes the killer to be influenced by the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire.
Temple is impressed with Sandra's skills of observation and asks her to volunteer to help them flush out this murdering scoundrel. Well, what the hell? She'll do it and Sandra gets a police ID badge and a gun and wow, who knew it was this easy to get a gig with Scotland Yard?
It seems the "Poet Killer" lures his victims by way of personal ads so the plan is for Sandra to answer some ads until she finds the killer without actually, you know, getting killed. A detective named Barrett is assigned to follow her and make sure that doesn't happen.
Sandra answers an ad that brings her to the attention of a former fashion designer who thinks he still is a fashion designer. Of course this guy is nuts; he's played by Boris Karloff.
Totally by coincidence (because we really need to move this movie a long), Sandra crosses paths with Robert Fleming, a dashing man about town who is also a theater producer and may be a lead to get Sandra back into acting but dang she's got this tracking down a serial killer thing going onj.
And Fleming could be the serial killer. He's played by George Sanders whose line delivery always make him seem like he's up to some sketchy shit whether he is or not.
Well, Fleming prevails, Sandra agrees to marry him, then finds incriminating evidence that points to Fleming being the "Poet Killer".
Well that sucks!
Except he's not guilty, the killer is still on the loose, Sandra is still in danger and some other dude is the "Poet Killer".
The "It's That Guy Who Was In That Thing" Department
- George Sanders won an an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950).
- Charles Coburn was Chief Inspector Harley Temple and we've seen him before as Oliver Oxley in the film Monkey Business (1952)
- Boris Karloff has appeared in this blog before as The Monster in both Frankenstein & Bride Of Frankenstein.
- And yes that was Alan Napier as Inspector Gordon who would go on to play Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s live-action Batman television series.
Lured is standard issue "foggy London scared of a serial killer of women" film but stands out with a surprisingly deft performance by Lucille Ball. Some of her comic gifts are on display but she comports herself very well in a role that is grittier and more serious than we may expect to see from her.
Our next movie is from 1956 and has a great title for a film noir, While the City Sleeps and is directed by Fritz Lang who wrote the book on film noir.
Spoiler alert: this is really not that kind of movie.
I'm not saying it's a bad movie.
Well, maybe I am.
But mostly, it just falls short of the expectations one might have for film noir.
There's a serial killer on the loose,terrorizing young women in the city. But this is almost more of a sub-plot to the shenanigans going on down Kyne Inc.
Elderly Amos Kyne, news media mogul, has died and left his son Walter in charge. Walter hated his father and doesn't want to be in charge. Except the money that comes with being top dog is kind of nice.
So Walter creates a new second-in-command position of Executive Director and sets three men in competition:
- wire-service chief Mark Loving
- newspaper chief Jon Day Griffith
- television chief Harry Kritzer
Whoever breaks the story of the capture of the "Lipstick Killer" gets the new executive gig.
Edward Mobley, TV anchorman for Kyne Inc, could be a contender for the Executive Director position but he's made it plain he doesn't want it.
What plays out over the course of much of the movie is a lot of soap opera theatrics as the men in contention for the director job plot, scheme, maneuver and engage in general fuckery to come out on top.
Most of the work to break the story of the serial killer is being done by the one man who is not competing for the job, Mobley.
Long story made short, the serial killer is caught and ultimately the right person gets the Executive Director job and yes, I think I am saying this is not a good movie.
The "It's That Thing That Was In That Thing" Department
Several props—some of which featured a large K in a circle—were recycled from Citizen Kane, which RKO had made 15 years earlier, and may have prompted the use of the name "Kyne."
While the City Sleeps is labeled as film noir but it doesn't really measure up to the conventions of the form. I suppose if one looks at this less than a murder mystery and more of a critique of capitalistic excess and a media run amuck in a blind quest for readers, viewers and ratings, this movie maybe succeeds on those merits.
Sorry, it's not one my faves.
Next week we look at a movie that takes place after the end of the world. Starring Harry Belafonte, it's The World, The Flesh and the Devil.
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