Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion -- in the context of "war noirs"
Posted by Dan Hodges
User icon on 2/3/2021, 1:18 am, in reply to "From 2017: Street of Chance discussion"

Many years ago "Dark Marc" -- because we'd become close friends -- told me that he'd been on telephone call during which Eddie, "Czar of Noir," had made fun of my analysis of "war noirs," e.g., my dealing with Street of Chance.

Given that my analysis was later published by Alain Silver, et. al., in Film Noir Reader 4, you might say I got the final word, since Eddie's dismissal didn't prevent it from going public.

In the many intervening years, I've significantly revised my essay on my website (filmnoirfile.com), as it was published in FNR 4. I've addressed, on the one hand, newly acknowledged "crime noirs" and, on the other hand, my discovery of "spy noirs" that conform to my original analysis of "war noirs."

Where does this enhancement leave Eddie as a film noir historian? The Blackboard website may wish to address this question. If not, my analysis remains a repudiation of those way-back views by Eddie (and any of his acolytes who repudiated/ridiculed my analysis of "war noirs," whether crime noirs or spy noirs).

Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion -- in the context of "war noirs"
Posted by Don Malcolm
User icon on 2/4/2021, 10:14 am, in reply to "Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion -- in the context of "war noirs""

It's unsurprising. Remember: "barroom not classroom." And a discussion of class in American noir? Beyond the pale, even for someone who intermittently pays a lot of lip service to Abe Polonsky.

But the real impediment is that there's a vested interest in keeping the origins of film noir as murky as possible--there's a lot more opportunity to play fast and loose with history that way. "Inside politics" within the studios can then take precedence to an analysis of story elements as they relate to contemporary social issues and conditions.

Also, your analysis is "too left" even for many erstwhile liberals, which produces a strong reflexive rejection of the concepts espoused. They seem only willing to deal (tacitly and gingerly) with such issues when they arise in non-American noirs...

Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion -- in the context of "war noirs"
Posted by Dan Hodges
User icon on 2/4/2021, 11:56 pm, in reply to "Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion -- in the context of "war noirs""
I don't ask anyone to read through the reviews of Film Noir Reader 4 on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Film-Noir-Reader-Crucial-Themes/product-reviews/0879103051/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

However, I want to underscore that my (then, much shorter) essay on war noirs, was taken to task for being, as Don would have it, too left wing by an early reviewer of the anthology, who drew a prompt rejoinder that defended me (and another contributor to that anthology).

That is, Don's characterization in 2021 of how my essay may be received by liberals originally took place 16 (!) years ago following the initial post of its publication on amazon.

The irony in this exchange is that Dan H. clearly thinks that I agreed with the Amazon reviewer, whereas I was commenting on how his analysis would be received by a larger cross-section of cinephiles who did not want to engage with film reviews featuring left-leaning terminology. This reminds us of the ongoing hazards of chat groups.

Our remaining comments are more focused on the actual quality of STREET OF CHANCE...

Posted by Dan in the MW
User icon on 2/3/2021, 7:35 am, in reply to "From 2017: Street of Chance discussion"

I still regard "Street of Chance" as one of the poorest Woolrich adaptations and that includes some Poverty Row productions that I like much better.

"The Black Curtain" was adapted for the "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" with Richard Basehart in the lead role. It was shorter in terms of its running time, but it proved to be superior to "Street of Chance." Basehart brought greater intensity to the role of an amnesiac fighting to recover his memory. Meredith came across as more of a patsy.

Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion
Posted by Don Malcolm
User icon on 2/5/2021, 11:18 am, in reply to "Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion"

This is one place where the "studio intrigue" emphasis that has come to dominate Eddie's approach would be useful in order to obtain more perspective on what happened.

Much of the "pedigree" around this film is pretty impeccable. Screenwriter Garrett Fort had a vertiginous career in Hollywood and ought to be one of the opposing counterweights in Philippe Garnier's narrowly-drawn portrait of screenwriters in Golden Age Hollywood. Fort was in a serious decline when he adapted STREET OF CHANCE due to a lingering spiritual/psychological malaise, and he would die by his own hand a few years later. Fort was much more of a horror specialist, having had a major hand in developing the scripts for both DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN. His work took a turn toward noir after his return from a spiritual retreat in India--first with a dark melodrama for Republic called THE ZERO HOUR (1939), directed by Sidney Salkow just before he jumped to Columbia's B-unit. (There are clearly some Republic films from the late 30s that bear re-examination in addition to what we looked at in our survey of descriptive reviews of their 40s-50s noirs: with any luck, Scorsese and his crew have done some of that work for us already...)

After being teamed with British playwright Reginald Denham to sharpen his play LADIES IN RETIREMENT for Columbia, Fort signed on with Paramount, where he write the screenplay for AMONG THE LIVING (which helps explain some of the "horror" tones that creep into the story) before being assigned to adapt STREET OF CHANCE.

For all his pedigree in Germany and France prior to the rise of Hitler, Theodor Sparkuhl was not treated with much respect upon his arrival in Hollywood. Once at Paramount, he was blocked by the presence of John Seitz, and was relegated to B pictures, where he was only intermittently challenged. With the uptick in movie production after Pearl Harbor, Sparkuhl was more often involved with bigger pictures, but he died right after the war at the early age of 52, just as noir was coming into its own.

Director Jack Hively was a journeyman glad-hander with family connections in the business who worked his way up from film editor to director, parlaying his personality and success with RKO's SAINT series into a more lucrative contract with Paramount. STREET OF CHANCE was Hively's only credit at his new studio, however; once the war hit, the 31-year-old jumped in with both feet, landing an assignment in the Army Signal Corps and making it all the way to major. Injured severely during the war while securing battle footage, he concluded his war service with the documentary ASSIGNMENT: TOKYO, described by one reviewer as "an outright paean to Douglas McArthur." Upon his return to Hollywood, he was eased over to Universal, where he was used mostly in second-unit work. After a long interregnum, he resumed work in TV in areas that we might tactfully term "mid-Americana" (LASSIE, DEATH VALLEY DAYS, THE LIFE & TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS).

So no budding noir auteur at the helm of STREET OF CHANCE. With a screenwriter on the downslide and a B-picture budget and schedule, perhaps it's not too surprising that the film comes up short.

Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion
Posted by Dan in the MW
User icon on 2/5/2021, 4:24 pm, in reply to "Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion"

My disappointment was that I actively searched for "Street of Chance" for quite a long time before I was able to see it. What a let down!

My complaint was similar to my dismissal of "The Naked Alibi." So much high quality talent wasted in a production that failed to deliver more than middling to mediocre results from what ought to have been a dynamite movie. Why go to the kitchen if you're not going to use the quality ingredients to cook something special.

SPOILER: "Street of Chance" tosses in a few plot points about fascist wannabes (much like the better film "This Gun for Hire") that add nothing to the movie. The television adaptation of "The Black Curtain" wisely avoids this tacked on nonsense.

Garrett Fort did have a few more scripts worth mentioning "The Man in Half Moon Street" and "Blood on the Sun" being a few late entries.

My suspicion is that Fort's unhappy end was driven in part by his being swindled by con artists posing as religious mystics.

Richard Basehart brings an intensity to "The Black Curtain" that Burgess Meredith lacked. Basehart probably benefited from having a talented director (Sydney Pollack) guiding this episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour."

Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion
Posted by Don Malcolm
User icon on 2/6/2021, 7:04 am, in reply to "Re: From 2017: Street of Chance discussion"

Fort only supplied the story for BLOOD ON THE SUN; the actual screenplay was written by Lester Cole. The rights to Barré Lyndon’s 1939 play THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET were purchased by Paramount in 1940; one of Fort’s first assignments was to create an adaptation/story outline for it. It languished in that form until 1944, when veteran screenwriter Charles Kenyon fashioned a screenplay. (Sources indicate that Fort was barely capable of playing backgammon by that point in time...)

Maybe Eddie should do a Noir City show subtitled “Big Name Sizzle, Big Screen Fizzle.” Both NAKED ALIBI and STREET OF CHANCE would qualify for inclusion in such a series...