on 12/26/2024, 9:05 am
Some very solid (and now mostly familiar) recommendations for Xmas noir viewing. Separately posted (to simulate the phenomenon of an actual thread!) are a few youTube links to the touted films.
Today we might be recommending L'ASSASINAT DU PERE NOEL aka WHO KILLED SANTA CLAUS? (France, 1941), the beginning of the "provincial gothic" sub-genre of noir that we screened at MCP's Noir Noel in December 2017 and that was just recently ratified and "rediscovered" by Eddie M. at his NC XMAS event earlier this month. We have come a long way in the intervening years.
Happy holidays--and hold on to your heads for the goings-on in 2025...
ChiBob
Considering that, unlike other noirs I watch, Xmas Eve would probably have me around family members, so I’ll pick a few titles that are noirs for the whole family.
Double Indemnity--wonderfully scripted, with no overt and messy violence for the female family members, yet a temptress in Stanwyck where you just have to shake your head and chuckle, because she’s so damn good.
Another would be Vertigo--Hitch’s greatest film, IMO, already family tested, and a story of an essentially decent man giving vent to his obsession (all film collectors can sympathize).
Dan in the MW
I posted this on the board, but I would watch I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes with Elyse Knox, Don Castle and Regis Toomey.
I have never seen Robert Siodmak's Christmas Holiday, so I would seek that title out if it were available.
[NOTE: Dan expanded on his comment here with additional discussion in several posts to the Blackboard, which can be viewed by using the links provided below.}
[links removed]
Marie
My pick would be Christmas Holiday with Deanna Durbin. Not that I'd be watching a noir on Christmas Eve, but I know a lot of the die-hards probably would be. No particular reason to watch it except that she's one of my favorites, and it’s a movie I seldom watch, so Christmas Eve is the perfect excuse.
Jefty
Ok, I'm going for the obvious and that's "Christmas Holiday" with Deanna Durbin for the following reasons.
1. "K. I. S. S." Keep it Simple Silly (or you can insert "Stupid")...It's the durn title!
2. It's a rarity and seldom seen, and I'm not sure if it's available commercially.
3. It's a great film and story--and her one and only noir.
4. It's my birthday and that's why!!!!!!!! (Yea, Christmas Day...and don't ask what year or I'll hafta smack ya!)
5. Merry Christmas!!...it's been an enjoyable and enlightening year hangin' out with ya'll on the old "BB". Looking forward to the new year and hoping Santa brings me lots of goodies (like better copies of Loophole, The Pretender, High Tide and a myriad of other murky melodramas I have collected)...and that Santa's helpers at Sony et al release more Columbia and other noir in the new year.
Happy Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale and Happy New Year Y'ALL from deep down in darkest Dixie.
Jay M
Great idea Don! My choice is:
The Lady In The Lake (1947, Robert Montgomery)
A film that gets bad press and bad vibes from far too many. This Christmas-season Film Noir has an overly complicated plot, and it does get in the way if you concentrate too much on it. I think there are enough interesting details and well-played scenes to make up for the lack of coherence in the plot.
The film features amusing dialog and a terrific supporting cast, all at their best: Audrey Totter (who really carries the acting weight of the film brilliantly), Lloyd Nolan, Leon Ames, Jayne Meadows.
David Snell and Maurice Goldman are credited with musical duties, and they add a lot to the film with a score that features oddly haunting renditions of holiday tunes. Perhaps not 'The Great Holiday Noir', but a movie well worth getting to know
Gary Deane
I've attached a small contribution to the Xmas NOTW.
CASH ON DEMAND (1961/GB)
A remake of sorts of A Christmas Carol, Cash on Demand is a modest little Brit noir that punches way above its weight and scores a big KO. Peter Cushing stars as a cold and unsympathetic bank manager who is forced to take part in the robbery of his own bank, believing that his family is in mortal danger if he doesn’t go along.
The gang leader played by Andre Morell is Cushing’s mirror opposite, an urbane and engaging rogue--though let there be no doubt that Morell will be as just as happy to kill as not, if Cushing doesn’t cooperate.
Though the film, a psychological thriller, is hard-plotted and suspenseful, its real delights lay in the truth-telling exchanges between Cushing (who has never been better) and Morrell, whose dryness and mordancy is the stuff of dreams for the noir-afflicted.
Tightly scripted by David Chantler and evenly directed by Quentin Lawrence, Cash on Demand is the perfect noir-laced antidote to a surfeit of seasonal cheer--while at the same time holding to some of the basic moral narration of Charles Dickens’ classic tale.
Really though, it’s a noir for all seasons and a very, very good one.
DM
Thanks to all who participated. “Christmas noir” is a rarefied sub-category, to be sure, and Marie rightly points out that those who are watching noir on Christmas Eve are quite possibly just a bit too invested in the “mean street” ethos.
Thanks to Gary G(eorge) for adding some neo-noir choices in his post below:
[link removed]
Our evanescent poster, Neo-Noir, also made a fine suggestion in his post from earlier in the month:
[link removed]
I think of all the films suggested by our participants, The Night of the Hunter just might be the best.
We have old favorites (ChiBob), an under-appreciated rarity (Dan), an almost operatic noir from one of the style’s greatest practitioners (Marie and Jefty), an often-maligned but interesting oddity (Jay), and a terrific Brit-noir obscurity that just might do the best job of linking the old “spirit of Xmas” with our less, er, sentimental approach in the here-and-now...
My choice? No question about it: Blast of Silence, the sublimely coarse, noir-meets-verité “hit man comes unglued” effort from Allen Baron. It’s significant that Frankie Bono’s personal and professional life become messily intertwined at Christmas, which can be an especially bleak time for those who are alone or otherwise alienated/dispossessed. Bono is so far down the dark path that his inner voice (and the stand-in for “Father Christmas”) sounds an awful like Lionel Stander. (Which, of course, because it is Lionel Stander—whose version of Santa Claus would’ve made even Damon Runyon head for the hills.)
Watch it some Christmas Eve and I guarantee that between Frankie, the repulsive and pathetic Big Ralph, the smarmy, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer Peter, the double-timing Lorrie, and the sheer bleakness of the Christmas mise-en-scene, you will intone out loud: “There but for the grace of God...”
And think to yourself: if I were a hit man/(woman), what would I be doing on Christmas? Maybe—in the words of another great noir Santa surrogate, George Grisby—you‘d be engaging in “a little tar-get practice”...
Happy holidays!
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