Pale Flower (1964)

Pale Flower is a 1964 Japanese film relased, surprisingly, not by Nikkatsu Studio but by rival studio Shochiku (although it was independently produced). It’s a film noir but not a conventional one and it’s a yakuza movie but not a conventional one.

Muraki (Ryô Ikebe) is a yakuza who had just been released from prison after serving a sentence for killing a member of a rival gang. Now he discovers that the two gangs have joined forces, but there are no hard feelings.

Muraki is obsessed by gambling. He meets a strange girl, a fellow gambling obsessive. Her name is Saeko (Mariko Kaga).

They are drawn to each other, but not just by their shared love for gambling. They both feel somehow doomed, as if their lives have no meaning and no direction and can only end in disaster. The gambling is clearly symbolic - they both have a desire to play for the highest stakes of all, life itself. There are lots of gambling scenes in this movie.

It’s important to note that the plot has not offered us a single reason why these two people see their lives as having no value or purpose. It’s something missing within them.

Perhaps they fall in love. They don’t seem quite sure about that. Perhaps their obsession with each other is like their passion for gambling - it’s just a way to deal with the boredom.

The plot kicks in slowly but this is not a heavily plot-driven movie. The two now united yakuza gangs are facing a challenge from a powerful Osaka-based gang. Muraki will be a key player in the defensive moves against this encroaching gang. Muraki believes he will have a high price to pay but he accepts this with his usual indifference.

Ryô Ikebe as Muraki gives a very noir (and very good) performance. Mariko Kaga as Saeko is rather mesmerising.

Saeko is not really a femme fatale. It’s more that these are two doomed people drawn together, not to try to save each other but to share their doom.

Director Masahiro Shinoda claimed that the background to the movie was Japan’s political position at the time as a not entirely willing U.S satellite which he felt had robbed the country of a sense of purpose. This is the kind of thing that exercises the minds of intellectuals while ordinary people are too busy living their lives. I cannot see any political angle whatsoever to this movie, except perhaps that it does give us a sense of a society adrift, and individuals within that society adrift. But mercifully there’s no overt political content whatsoever.

Although stylistically they are poles apart in its own way this movie is, like Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill, an attempt to reinvent the yakuza movie. There’s an intriguing subtly surreal dream sequence.

The film is set in Tokyo but the location shooting was done in Yokohama. It has a very noir look.

It certainly has plenty of noirish impending doom vibes. But it’s not quite straightforward noir. Muraki knows that he’s headed for disaster but unlike the typical noir protagonist he makes no attempts to escape his fate.

Muraki’s motivations are to some extent determined by the yakuza code of honour but to me this doesn’t feel like a conventional yakuza movie, or even a conventional Japanese movie.

I got some rather French vibes from it. A definite whiff of existentialism. If Camus had written a screenplay for a yakuza movie he might have come up with something like this. It doesn’t feel quite Japanese. There’s some Christian symbolism. It seems to be about people finding all the existing belief systems (traditional Japanese values, the yakuza code, Christianity, materialism, consumerism) unsatisfying. So they’re left with a vague existentialism of a warped kind - a death fetish.

There’s also a fascinating hint that both Muraki and Saeko have an erotic interest in death, and particularly in murder. In fact that’s the whole basis for their attraction. Saeko is attracted to Muraki because he killed a man (that’s why he was in prison). But not only that. He enjoyed it. It was the greatest pleasure he had ever experienced in his life. Muraki is attracted to Saeko because she understands how he feels about killing. And then there’s a wildcard in the pack - Joh, a stone-cold half-Chinese hitman also in love with killing.

This is vaguely similar to the territory explored years later in Basic Instinct. In this case we have three characters with a sex-death fetish.

This is a very dark disturbing provocative movie. Very highly recommended.

It’s on Blu-Ray in the Criterion Collection.

The Yakuza (1974)

The 70s was a great decade for Robert Mitchum. The Yakuza in 1974 started a run of notable roles.

It begins with Harry Kilmer (Mitchum) doing a favour for his old pal George Tanner (Brian Keith). He has no choice. Due to something that happened years earlier Kilmer owes Tanner a major favour. Tanner is involved in a business deal with a big-time yakuza named Tono. The deal went wrong and Tono is holding Tanner’s daughter for ransom. Kilmer has to go to Tokyo to rescue her. Tanner sends his bodyguard Dusty (Richard Jordan) along to help.

Kilmer is an ex-cop and and ex-private eye. He’s a fairly tough hombre.

Kilmer is owed a favour by ex-yakuza Ken Tanaka (Ken Tanaka). He agrees to help Kilmer.

The fairly complex plot is not what matters. What matters is the web of obligations that develops. Every action taken by any character seems to involve another obligation.

The yakuza have a code of honour that is as rigid as that of the samurai. Debts must be paid. Obligations cannot be ignored or evaded.

Kilmer is an old-fashioned guy who also believes in honouring debts. Kilmer understands Japan pretty well, having lived there for quite a few years. But he doesn’t understand Japan completely and he doesn’t understand yakuza culture completely.

The fact that several Americans are involved complicates things. There’s Kilmer, there’s Tanner, there’s Dusty and there’s Kilmer’s old friend Oliver (Herb Edelman). Americans don’t necessarily adhere to a code of honour, much less a rigid code like the yakuza code. Kilmer does, but other Americans might not.

Paul Schrader wrote the original screenplay with his brother Leonard. This movie had a troubled production history. Robert Aldrich was the initial choice to direct. Mercifully that didn’t happen. Then Sydney Pollack was brought on board. He was an odd choice for the material. He liked a lot of things about Paul Schrader’s script but Schrader had conceived it as very much a yakuza film and Pollack wanted to focus more on the ideas about obligations and on the culture crash. Robert Towne was brought in to work on the script. In retrospect Sam Peckinpah might perhaps have been a more obvious choice as director.

The Yakuza was a box-office disaster. I suspect that this was partly because in 1974 a yakuza movie would have been very unfamiliar territory for American audiences and critics.

Another problem was undoubtedly the fact that apart from Kilmer the other key characters - Tanaka Ken, his brother Goro and Eko - are uncompromisingly Japanese. Their motivations would have been perplexing and alienating to American viewers. They might have been inclined to judge a woman harshly for putting family duty ahead of love. And would certainly have been puzzled by the fact that Tanaka Ken hates Kilmer but will unhesitatingly risk his life to help him. There is a debt of obligation involved, and that overrides everything. To men like Tanaka Ken a debt must be repaid whatever the cost. And there are no moral shortcuts. If you do someone an injury it’s no good just saying you’re sorry. You can atone, but there’s a price to be paid.

And the movie is not tempted to Americanise these characters, or to soften them or to make them more sympathetic to an American audience. You just have to accept that they see things differently.

Audiences expecting an American-style gangster movie would have been bewildered.

There’s a lot of action and a lot of violence but again it’s not done in classical Hollywood style. The action scenes are more like those you’ll find in a samurai movie. There’s an enormous amount of sword-fighting. In the 1970s a yakuza would still settle a score with a sword rather than a gun.

Mitchum is excellent. Kilmer is an honourable man but now he will have to be satisfy Japanese notions of honour. This is typical 70s Mitchum - he’s world-weary and battered but he will not admit defeat.

The Yakuza has a flavour of its own. It has its problems but it’s fascinating and gripping and it’s highly recommended.

The Warner Archive Blu-Ray looks great and includes a director’s commentary track.

Night Court (1932)

Night Court (later re-released as Justice for Sale) is a very hard-edged 1932 MGM pre-code crime thriller.

Judge Andrew J. Moffett (Walter Huston) is a night court judge and he’s as crooked as they come. He’s also cruel and vindictive.

He has a mistress, Lil Baker (Noel Baker), whom he has set up in a luxury Park Avenue apartment.

Now there’s going to be an investigation into crooked judges, headed by Judge William Osgood (Lewis Stone) who is something of a rarity - a judge who is not on the take.

Moffett will have to try to destroy as much evidence as possible and he will also have to hide his mistress away somewhere. He can’t afford to allow Osgood to talk to her. She knows way too much of an incriminating nature.

Lil is hiding out in a rooming house. Next door is a young couple with a baby. The wife is a good-natured ditzy blonde, Mary Thomas (Anita Page). Quite by accident Mary happens to see a piece of damning evidence. Moffett plans to deal with Mary by framing her on a nonsensical charge of prostitution but he’ll have to move fast. He’s under surveillance.

Mary’s husband Mike (Phillips Holmes) figures out that Mary was framed and he’s out for revenge but he doesn’t realise just how powerful Moffett is. And while Osgood is working to close the net on Moffett he may have underestimated Moffett’s ruthlessness.

While the ending is a little contrived it is rather cool and very effective with a very nifty surprise witness scene.

This is Walter Huston at his nasty best, a fine portrait of evil and arrogance. Walter Huston was absolutely on fire in the pre-code era, delivering one extraordinary performance after another.

Anita Page and Noel Baker are both quite good. Phillips Holmes overacts but he’s playing man under such extreme pressure that this approach actually works.

This is a very pre-code movie. Once the Production Code came in any mention of the truth about crooked judges, corrupt cops and government corruption was pretty much forbidden. This movie makes it clear that the entire system was corrupt from top to bottom, that it wasn’t just a case of one bad apple.

It’s not just the corruption. The movie takes aim at the way vicious stupid cops target the powerless. The Production Code would never have permitted the criminal justice system to be depicted as it really was, a system that provided justice only for those with money.

It’s also crystal clear that Lil is a kept woman. And there are plenty of quite open mentions of prostitution.

This has some of the feel of pre-code gangster movies but in this case the gangsters are judges, lawyers and court officials. There is also perhaps a slight proto-noir vibe with a young couple hopelessly enmeshed in a web of evil from which there seems no escape.

Put it this way, if you enjoy film noir or early 30s gangster movies you will almost certainly enjoy Night Court. If you’re a pre-code fan as well you’ll love it.

It’s fascinating to me that in the early 30s MGM made some incredibly tough movies (and Night Court is very tough indeed). One that comes to mind is another Walter Huston film, the hard-as-nails The Beast of the City (1932). And they made some seriously wild and sleazy movies, such as Kongo (1932) which starred, yes you guessed it, Walter Huston.

The Warner Archive DVD is obviously an unrestored print but it’s quite acceptable.

Night Court packs a wallop. Very highly recommended.

Other Walter Huston movies made in this same year that showcase his ability to set the screen on fire are Rain and Law and Order (one of the greatest westerns ever made).

Borsalino (1970)

Borsalino is a 1970 French gangster movie which was a major box-office hit. Which is hardly surprising, given that it stars Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo who were at that time the two most popular, most charismatic and sexiest male movie stars in France. When you add to this the fact that the period setting looks completely fabulous and there are lots of fistfights and gunfights this was about as close as you could ever get to a surefire commercial success.

The idea originated with Alain Delon (who produced the movie). He’d just had a hit with La piscine (The Swimming Pool) directed by Jacques Deray and he was keen to do another movie with Deray. Delon’s star power attracted international financing and Borsalino looks expensive because it was.

It’s the story of two small-time crooks in Marseille, Roch Siffredi (Delon) and François Capella (Belmondo). They meet when they beat the living daylights out of each other over a girl, Lola (Catherine Rouvel). Having beaten each other to a pulp they become firm friends, and criminal associates.

Roch and François are ambitious but at first they don’t really have a master plan. They just don’t like being pushed around by the crime lords of Marseille. They eliminate one of these crime lords and take over his operations, and they just keep eliminating rivals until they reach the top.

Roch and François are very different but both are charming and magnetic in their own ways. This is a gangster buddy movie and the differences between the two are (as always) a major factor in making it work as a buddy movie. Both Delon and Belmondo deploy their unquestioned star power and their established screen personas. Roch is super-cool and self-contained and rather moody and brooding, things Delon did extremely well. François is hyper-active and cheerful with a playful approach to life, things that Belmondo did extremely well.

There’s crime and corruption here but this movie takes no interest in the moral implications. Roch and François are bad guys but they’re super-cool and they’re very much the heroes of the story. They’re not rebels. They’re unabashed gangsters and they’re violent and ruthless. Nonetheless the movie is very much on their side, not for political reasons but because they’re super-cool.

The movie-going public loved this movie. Critics were less happy with it, seeing it as a case of style over substance. You can always rely on critics to miss the point. In Borsalino the style IS the substance. This is an exercise in cinematic style. This is pure cinema. Critics, being critics, love looking for political meanings and subtexts. There aren’t any here. This movie ostentatiously avoids such things.

The costumes are superb. The costumes for the two male leads reflect not just the differences between the two characters but the differences between the screen images of the two stars. Delon’s clothes are cool and ultra-sharp. That was Delon’s image. Roch wants to look like a gentleman. François wants to look like a big-shot gangster, which reflects Belmondo’s more flamboyant slightly neurotic image.

The production design is terrific and reflects these differences as well. Roch wants his living quarters to look like a gentleman’s apartment. François’ idea of interior decoration is to have paintings of naked women on the walls.

There’s a lot of fairly graphic violence but it’s done in a very operatic way, in fact in an almost Italian way. The murders (and there are lots of them) are reminiscent of the emerging Italian poliziotteschi genre. This was a Franco-Italian co-production. I have no idea how well it did in Italy but I imagine it did well. It manages to be in tune with the visually extravagant approach of Italian film-making of this era while still feeling very very French.

American gangster movies probably had some influence on this movie but the French had their own gangster movie tradition which this movie draws on heavily.

The two stars are absolutely at the top of their game and they play off each other superbly.

Borsalino looks gorgeous, has a reasonable story, it offers plenty of action and it has style to burn. Don’t overthink this movie. Just wallow in the style. Borsalino is highly recommended.

The Arrow Blu-Ray offers a very nice transfer. Extras include a worthless audio commentary that tries to impose 2020s ideologies onto the movie. In general audio commentaries are best avoided these days.

The Secret 6 (1931)

When we think of Hollywood gangster movies of the early 1930s we don’t really think of MGM, but in fact MGM made several gangster pictures. The most notable was The Beast of the City (1932) which in my view is the greatest gangster picture of them all. A more unusual MGM gangster movie is The Secret 6, released in 1931. It was directed by George W. Hill.

Louis Scorpio (Wallace Beery) works in the stockyards and is affectionately known as Slaughterhouse. He gets involved in bootlegging in a small way in the town of Centro but when his boss and former pal Johnny Franks (Ralph Bellamy) double-crosses him he decides he’d like to be the boss. He guns down Johnny.

The real boss of this crime organisation is crooked lawyer Richard Newton (Lewis Stone). Being a lawyer as well as a gang boss makes Newton a formidable figure.

Slaughterhouse’s first move after taking over from Johnny Franks is to establish complete political control of the town. He engineers the election of bootlegger and gunman Nick “the Gouger” Mizoski (Paul Hurst) as mayor.

It seems like nothing can stop the rise of Newton and Slaughterhouse and soon they’re in control of crime in the city as well. They rely not just on gunplay but on large-scale bribery. They pay off city officials and also newspapermen, including Hank Rogers (Johnny Mack Brown) and Carl Luckner (Clark Gable).

Anne (Jean Harlow) is one of the gang’s women but she falls for Hank in a big way, which will have consequences.

The authorities may be powerless to stop these gangster but there are those who are determined to put an end to organised crime in the city. These men are the Secret 6, a group of important men who have formed a vigilante organisation. It’s a rather disturbing idea. This has to be one of the earliest Hollywood movies to deal with vigilante justice, but it would not be the last. The Secret 6 all wear masks which gives this movie a bit of a pulp fiction flavour, and also perhaps a slight Edgar Wallace flavour.

It’s interesting that both the notable MGM gangster movies, this one and The Beast of the City, are slightly unusual (although in different ways) with a flavour that differentiates them from Warner Brothers gangster films of the same era.

Slaughterhouse never manages to acquire even a veneer of sophistication. He’s uncouth and maybe not overly bright but he is ruthless and he has Newton’s brains to rely on. You do have to wonder if Slaughterhouse is really smart enough to be a gang boss. Wallace Beery is good as Slaughterhouse but maybe a bit too much of a cheery likeable working-class rough diamond to be really menacing.

Lewis Stone is smooth and sinister as Newton. Ralph Bellamy is excellent.

This was a very early rôle for Jean Harlow (she was nineteen at the time) but she shows definite flashes of the Harlow magic.

It’s also an early rôle for Clark Gable. He was not yet a star but he soon would be. Watching his performance in this movie his star quality is already evident.

This was the movie that convinced MGM that Harlow and Gable were star material and the rest is history.

There’s plenty of violence but it’s nowhere near as graphic as the blood-drenched The Beast of the City.

The ending is a bit contrived and a bit rushed. Frances Marion had a distinguished career as a screenwriter but gangster movies were not her forte and the script doesn’t quite hold together as well as one would like.

Director George W. Hill keeps things moving at a breakneck pace which helps to disguise the weaknesses of the script.

The Secret 6 is an intriguing and entertaining gangland saga and the presence of Harlow and Gable helps enormously. Recommended.

The Warner Archive DVD is of course barebones but provides a very good transfer.

The Damned Don’t Cry (1950)

The Damned Don’t Cry is a 1950 Joan Crawford melodrama with a definite film noir tinge.

In classic noir style the story is told in flashback. The movie opens with the discovery of the body of a mobster found in the desert. A home movie is discovered that shows the mobster with glamorous socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes (Joan Crawford). Lorna is nowhere to be found which leads the police to speculate that it might be worth questioning her about the murder.

We then get the flashback that fills us in on Lorna’s life. She was once Ethel Whitehead, married to an ordinary working guy, and with a six-year-old son. Life is a constant round of struggle and poverty. When the boy is killed in an accident Ethel has had enough. She leaves. She wants more out of life and she wants to get it before it’s too late.

She gets a job as a fashion model. The models get kickbacks for introducing suckers to a gambling joint. Ethel is starting to make some money and she likes it.

She meets a rather nice man. Martin Blackford (Kent Smith) is an accountant. Through Ethel he meets Grady and Grady has a small accounting problem which Martin clears up. Grady is impressed. Grady is a businessman whose business activities are not what you might call strictly legal. In fact he’s a gangster. Grady is impressed by the idea that a guy like Martin could put his operation on a more sound and profitable footing.

Grady sings Martin’s praises to his boss, big-time mobster George Castleman (David Brian). Castleman sees the possibilities. Castleman represents a new type of gangster. He sees the future in terms of operating a crime organisation like a legitimate business. Much more efficient and much more profitable. In Castleman’s view the days of gang wars and thuggery and having guys rubbed out are over. He offers Martin the job of running the whole financial side of his criminal empire. Martin doesn’t want to be involved in crime but he figures that the only way to keep Ethel is by having lots of money so he takes the job.

Soon Martin is a rich man but he did it all for Ethel but Ethel has set her sights on George Castleman. He can give her what she wants. He can give her more than Martin could ever hope to give her.

Ethel is soon installed as Castleman’s mistress. And with the help of socialite Patricia Longworth (Selena Royle) she reinvents herself as Lorna Hansen Forbes. She has acquired enough class to pass as a high society dame. She has everything she wanted.

For the sake of convenience and simplicity I’m going to continue to refer to her as Ethel.

There’s one fly in the ointment - Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran). Nick runs the west coast territory for Castleman but Nick is old school. He does things the old way. If someone causes a problem Nick gets the boys to take the guy for a ride. Nick’s habit of having guys killed puts him out of synch with Castleman’s approach and there’s eventually going to be a showdown. And Ethel, much against her will, is going to be right in the middle. Ethel doesn’t like being confronted by unpleasant realities like gangsters planning to have each other rubbed out.

It’s a good script with more than enough noirishness to justify the film noir label. Both Ethel and Martin are nice ordinary people but they get sucked in by the lure of easy money and they slowly become corrupted. They make more and more compromises and as they get in deeper it becomes more and more impossible to get out.

Ethel is ambitious and ruthless but she’s not as tough and ruthless as she thinks she is, and while we’re appalled by her climb to the top we can understand her motivation. We can understand why she thinks it’s worth paying any price to escape the life of poverty and despair she once knew. She might be a bad girl but there are lines she will not cross. One of those lines is murder. She will happily live off the proceeds of crime but she wants no part in violence of any kind. She is attracted to George Castleman because he’s a gangster who has renounced violence. It never occurs to Ethel that a situation might arise in which George would be tempted to revert to violence. Ethel thinks she can remain in control of her situation but she’s wrong.

Martin is in the same boat. He thought that being an accountant for the Mob wasn’t the same as being an actual gangster but he learns that once you work for the Mob you’re a gangster whether you like it or not.

Kent Smith is excellent as the hapless Martin. David Brian effortlessly combines smoothness and menace. Steve Cochran is always a joy to watch.

There’s so much to like about this movie but there is one major problem that can’t be evaded. Joan Crawford is right for the part and her performance is excellent but she was simply too old to play this role. At least fifteen years too old. This was true of several of her 1940s movies. Crawford was never one to let that bother her. She always relied on sheer bravado to carry it off and in most cases it worked. It doesn’t work this time.

I can buy the idea that George Castleman falls for her. He’s attracted by her intelligence, her ambition and her ruthlessness. He sees her as a female version of himself. I can just about buy the idea that Martin falls for her. For years he’d worked long hours for very little money. He had neither the time nor the money for a social life and he’s naïve about women.

What I can’t buy is that Nick Prenta would fall for her. He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to fall for a woman almost old enough to be his mother. The whole romance between these two is wildly incongruous and totally unconvincing and unfortunately it’s absolutely critical to the plot that the viewer does buy it.

Apart from that problem this is a fine noir melodrama. If you can ignore the problem of Crawford’s age then it’s highly recommended.

The Beast of the City (1932)

The Beast of the City, released in 1932, was MGM’s attempt at the gangster movie genre. It’s based on a story by W. R. Burnett and was directed by Charles Brabin.

To say that Captain Jim Fitzpatrick (Walter Huston) is a hardboiled cop would be putting it mildly. He’s not just hardboiled, he’s impetuous and obsessive. And he’s obsessed with putting big-time mobster Sam Belmonte (Jean Hersholt) behind bars. Fitzpatrick is honest but he’s prepared to stretch the rules a little to get results.

His attempts to nail Belmonte for the murder of four bootleggers backfire, and Fitzpatrick finds himself transferred to the quietest precinct the Chief of Police can find, where he can’t get himself into hot water.

His brother Ed Fitzpatrick (Wallace Ford) is a cop as well.

Hoping to find even a shred of evidence to use against Belmonte Jim Fitzpatrick has a bunch of blondes brought in for questioning. He hopes that a witness can ID Daisy Stevens (Jean Harlow) for her part in a robbery. Daisy is pretty hardboiled as well and she knows how to handle cops.

Perhaps not altogether wisely Ed Fitzpatrick pays a visit to Daisy’s home. He falls for her considerable and very obvious charms. Given that this is Jean Harlow it would be difficult for any man to resist those charms. Seducing Ed is child’s play.

Jim Fitzpatrick hits the headlines after foiling a bank robbery and the moral reformers push for him to be made Chief of Police. His job is to clean up the town. People are having fun and someone has to put a stop to that.

Ed had hoped that with his brother now Chief of Police he’d get an immediate promotion. It doesn’t happen. Ed is bitter about this and he finds that maintaining a mistress like Daisy is an expensive proposition. He gets drawn into the rackets. In a small way at first, and then in a big way. He tips off Belmonte’s chief henchman about a shipment of bank money. The heist goes badly wrong. Ed ends up facing a murder charge. Jim Fitzpatrick is keen to see his brother go to the electric chair. Jim is not a forgiving kind of guy.

It all leads up to a finale that is one of the most extraordinary you’ll see in any gangster movie. Jim has a plan to nail Belmonte. It’s breathtakingly ruthless. Jim will use any methods, any methods at all, to get the result he wants.

Wallace Ford is very good as Ed Fitzpatrick but it’s Walter Huston and Jean Harlow who take centre stage. Huston manages to be incredibly intense without resorting to any histrionics. In the same year he played a very similar role as an obsessed lawman in the superb western Law and Order, a movie which has strong thematic affinities with this one.

Harlow is delightful. She does the full-blown sexy bad girl thing and, unconstrained by the Production Code, she sizzles.

There’s some classic pre-code dialogue. Ed grabs Daisy’s arms. She tells him he’s hurting her. He says she doesn’t like being hurt. She replies that sometimes it’s kinda fun, if it’s done in the right spirit.

This is an extremely violent brutal movie but it’s intelligent and provocative as well. Is Sam Belmonte the beast of the city, or is it Jim Fitzpatrick? Jim is entirely humourless and he’s utterly convinced that he is right. He has convinced himself that any methods can be justified, no matter how brutal. It never occurs to him that he may have become an inhuman monster.

Not surprisingly MGM were horrified by this movie when they saw it and made sure it disappeared into obscurity. One of the many things that frightened MGM was the implication that mobsters and the police can end up being almost indistinguishable, and that good men who believe themselves to be right can be horribly dangerous.

This movie is available on DVD in the Warner Archive series, with a very good transfer.

The Beast of the City is one of the most interesting of pre-code gangster films. Had it been made by Warner Brothers it might have been a major hit but MGM was the wrong studio for it. Very highly recommended.

Tokyo Drifter (1966)

Seijun Suzuki had a lucrative career going making inexpensive crime thrillers for Nikkatsu but his movies gradually became weirder and more stylistically extravagant. Things came to a head with Branded To Kill in 1967 but you can already see signs of his desire to break away from the standard crime movie formula in Tokyo Drifter in 1966.

Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) is a heavy for a yakuza gang but when his boss Kurata decides to go straight and disband the gang Tetsu decides to go straight as well.

It’s not going to be so easy. Otsuka, a rival yakuza from Karuta’s past, wants to take over Kurata’s legitimate businesses. If it’s going to be difficult for Kurata to go straight then it will be just as hard for Tetsu. His loyalty to Kurata is absolute.

Otsuka comes up with an elaborate plan to force Kurata’s hand. During the execution of the plan there are two murders, and either Kurata or Tetsu might be manoeuvred into taking the rap for one or both murders.

Tetsu decides it would be better for everyone if he wasn’t around any more. So he leaves and becomes a drifter. Like the Tokyo Drifter in the song that his girlfriend Chiharu (Chieko Matsubara) sings.

Of course his yakuza past keeps catching up with him, and Otsuka is still out to get him. A killer named Tatsu the Viper is stalking him.

In the course of these adventures and misadventures he encounters Kenji (Hideaki Nitani). Kenji saves Tetsu’s life. Kenji is also a drifter. A yakuza who becomes a drifter is a bit like a masterless samurai. He no longer has a sense of belonging. There is however a difference between the two men. Kenji had been Otsuka’s man but has abandoned his loyalty to his old yakuza boss. This deeply upsets Tetsu. Tetsu would never give up his loyalty to Karuta. A yakuza just doesn’t do such things. So two men who should become friends become at best uneasy allies.

Otsuka goes on plotting and eventually there must of course be a showdown.

We have to confront the question of genre. A lot of the Japanese crime movies made from the late 40s to the mid 60s get labelled as film noir and many do indeed have strong affinities to film noir. That’s especially true of Nikkatsu’s late 50s/early 60s offerings and several of Seijun Suzuki’s movies are often described as film noir. It’s obvious that Suzuki was heavily influenced by American crime movies of the 40s. The basic plot outline of Tokyo Drifter could come from a 40s American crime thriller. It does however have quite a few distinctively Japanese features. This is very much a movie about loyalty and betrayal, but it’s loyalty in a sense that owes more to the code of the samurai than to anything that you’d find in an American gangster movie. Tetsu is not Karuta’s loyal employee. They have a kind of father-son relationship but also the kind of relationship that would have existed between a samurai and his lord.

Stylistically this is a movie with its own unique flavour. It’s shot in colour, and vibrant colour. There’s a lot of film noir atmosphere but there’s a very strong 1960s vibe. In fact there’s a blending of 40s and 60s style. The nightclub in which Chiharu sings looks very 1960s but she doesn’t sing pop songs. She sings the kinds of songs that a chanteuse in a 1940s Hollywood movie would sing.

I thought initially that Tetsuya Watari was a bit too young to play Tetsu. I’d have been inclined to go for an actor who looked a bit more world-weary. He was forced on Suzuki by the studio and was apparently quite a problem, being too nervous and inexperienced to remember his lines. In a normal movie his performance might have been a disaster but in this movie his non-acting acting works. In a Suzuki movie clothes make the man. Literally. Suzuki thought the key to characterisation was to choose the right costume for the character. If the costume was right nothing else really mattered.

There are also touches of the surrealism that was a Suzuki trademark. This is not the real world. This is not Tokyo in 1966. This is a world created by Seijun Suzuki. The rules are different. It’s a totally artificial world that doesn’t even try to resemble the real world.

There’s a wonderful scene set in a western saloon (it’s a bar in Tokyo in the style of a wild West saloon), with an all-in brawl just like in a western. It’s played for comedic effect, it’s totally crazy and it comes out of nowhere but it works.

When you watch the two interviews with the director included on the Criterion DVD you start to get a handle on what it is that makes Tokyo Drifter so appealing. Suzuki wasn’t trying to be arty. He had no artistic pretensions at all. He was simply trying to be non-boring and fun. He hated the idea of shooting any scene in a conventional way. It was much more fun to do it in a totally unconventional and original idea. The movie looks like it was made as an art film, in a very Pop Art way, but this was entirely accidental. It was simply a product of Suzuki’s determination to keep trying something different. This is a kind of naïve art. Unlike too many self-consciously arty films it is never boring. You never know what Suzuki will throw at you next.

There are so many excellent visual set-pieces. The climactic shoot-out is the wildest most outrageous shoot-out you’ve ever seen.

Suzuki didn’t agonise too much over continuity. The important thing was to avoid being boring. He was much more interested in the production design than in the plot. And the production design in this case is stunning and outlandish.

Predictably Nikkatsu hated the movie. After two more films they fired him. Branded To Kill, usually regarded as his masterpiece, was the last straw for Nikkatsu.

Tokyo Drifter is a wild ride but I can promise you that while you might be mystified you will not be bored. Very highly recommended.

Johnny Eager (1941)

Johnny Eager is a 1941 MGM gangster movie that can, at a stretch, be seen as a proto-noir.

Robert Taylor was a major star at the time but he was thought of as being something of a lightweight, a pretty boy who was fine as a romantic lead but without much substance. Taylor would later develop into a very fine actor in rather dark roles in film noirs such as Rogue Cop and The Bribe. Johnny Eager can be seen as one of his first attempts to demonstrate that his acting really did have some depth.

Johnny Eager had been a notorious gangster before he was sent to prison. Now he’s out on parole and doing his best to go straight. He has a job as a cab driver and he is now a model citizen. His parole officer Mr Verne (Henry O’Neill) considers Johnny to be one of his greatest successes, a living proof that even hardened criminals can be successfully rehabilitated.

Unfortunately for the well-meaning Mr Verne, it’s all a lie. Johnny Eager is still running his criminal empire while putting on a remarkably convincing act. He maintains a cheap apartment in a poor neighbourhood as a front, but he only inhabits it when he gets a tip-off that his parole officer will be paying him a visit.

Johnny is the big boss of the city’s gambling rackets. His current project is to open up a dog-racing track. Apart from being a big money-spinner this will also be a convenient front and a useful place for laundering money. He has the politicians paid off but there is one major obstacle in his way, John Benson Farrell (Edward Arnold), the city’s incorruptible DA, and incidentally the man who sent Johnny to prison.

Everything is running fairly smoothly for Johnny until his parole officer arrives with two young female sociology students in tow. Lisbeth Bard (Lana Turner) is immediately attracted to Johnny and their paths are destined to cross again. Johnny is tiring of his current excessively needy girlfriend and Lisbeth soon takes her place. There are two problems associated with this romance. The first is that Lisbeth is the daughter of John Benson Farrell. The second is that Lisbeth falls in love with Johnny.

Johnny thinks the first problem can be easily dealt with. He sets Lisbeth up in such a way as to give him something big to hold over Farrell’s head, something that he can use to remove Farrell as an obstacle to his criminal activities. The second problem is more difficult. Johnny doesn’t take his relationships with women very seriously. His girlfriends come and go and he assumes that they understand that, and that they won’t become clingy. Unfortunately Lisbeth doesn’t work that way. Lisbeth doesn’t care that Johnny is a gangster, but she does care when he tries to give her the brush-off. This sets events in motion that will threaten the destruction of Johnny’s criminal empire and Johnny himself.

Robert Taylor is superb, as he always was when he was given a demanding role that allowed him to explore the darker side of human nature. Johnny Eager is both charmingly naïve (his knowledge of any subjects not related to crime is almost zero) and ruthless. He really knows very little about what makes people tick and his understanding of women is non-existent. He might be an anti-hero and a gangster but he’s difficult to dislike. Johnny Eager certainly has charisma.

Van Heflin, not yet a major star, is excellent as Johnny’s perpetually drunken sidekick Jeff Hartnett. Hartnett is a writer and an intellectual and seems on the surface of it to be an unlikely person to be mixed up with gangsters (although intellectuals do tend to be fascinated by criminals). Johnny claims that he doesn’t know why he lets Hartnett stay around him, but in fact Hartnett is his only true friend, the only person who doesn’t want something from Johnny. Hartnett always tells Johnny the truth. Those with the tedious habit of looking for gay subtexts may be tempted to look for one here. I personally find it rather irritating when any friendship between men is interpreted this way. I think the friendship between Johnny and Jeff Hartnett is more interesting without the gay subtext.

Lana Turner is surprisingly just a little on the bland side as Lisbeth. Or possibly she’s simply overshadowed by the very fine performances by Taylor and Heflin.

This movie was helmed by Mervyn LeRoy, always a reliable director of this sort of material.  Harold Rosson was in charge of the cinematography. They give the movie a definite atmosphere, and the noir feel is enhanced by Robert Taylor’s interestingly complex performance.

Johnny Eager is available as a made-on-demand DVD in the Warner Archive series. It’s an excellent transfer.

Johnny Eager is either an intriguing proto-noir or perhaps just a very early example of outright film noir. Either way it’s a very good movie and is highly recommended.

The Scarface Mob (1959)

In 1959 Desilu launched its new TV series The Untouchables with a two-part episode The Scarface Mob. The two parts were later combined for a theatrical release so it’s an appropriate subject for a classic movie blog. It can in fact be judged, and judged quite favourably, as film noir. The episode was directed by Phil Karlson, a man who needs no introduction to film noir fans, being responsible for noir classics like Kansas City Confidential.

The Scarface Mob deals with Eliot Ness’s battle to destroy the criminal empire of Al Capone. It was based on the book by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley and it appears that  while Ness’s contribution was accurate enough Fraley fictionalised the final book quite a bit. Nonetheless it’s a gripping documentary-style account of crime-fighting in the days of Prohibition. Eliot Ness was a Prohibition agent who assembled a small team of honest Federal agents who could be relied upon to to be immune from bribery. The Federal government pursued a double campaign against Capone. While they collected evidence to convict the famed mobster on income tax evasion charges Ness and his men would conduct a campaign of harassment, raiding Capone’s breweries and distilleries and cutting deep into his revenues.



This production has a rather dark tone with the Federal agents facing many setbacks and often paying a high price for their successes. Even the ending is slightly downbeat, emphasising that the battle against organised crime was far from won. In fact it has very much the feel of film noir, with its emphasis on corruption and with a major character (and a very likeable one) being killed off (a risk you certainly don’t expect to see taken in a 1950s American TV program). Both writer Paul Monash and director Phil Karlson approach the material in a manner that seems much closer to 1940s and 1950s crime movies than to television.

It’s also rather violent for a TV production with many shootouts filmed in a fairly brutal style. It’s interesting to compare this production with earlier gangster movies that had dealt with Capone. Capone here is a vicious thug and there’s no attempt at all to humanise him.



Eliot Ness would have been an ideal subject for a film noir. He was scrupulously honest but he managed to make a tragic mess of his life, ironically (given that he’d been a Prohibition agent) due to his fondness for the booze. That weakness is not touched on here but Ness does come across as a surprisingly vulnerable hero and he’s certainly no superman - he loses as many battles against Capone as he wins. Robert Stack’s performance became rather iconic as the series progressed and established itself as a television classic and in this opening episode he makes an effective hero with a fair degree of complexity. He’s obsessed and when he loses it hurts.

Keenan Wynn provides fine support as an ex-con turned crime-fighter who becomes Ness’s only really close friend. Barbara Nichols goes delightfully over-the-top as stripper Brandy LaFrance (and some of the scenes of her act are remarkably risque for 1959).



This is no glamourised view of the Jazz Age. This is a world of corruption and violence. It’s very much a film noir world and the style is gritty, violent and sleazy. Tragedy and death stalk this world and even Ness’s famous Untouchables can’t always protect you from this world. It’s a world in which crime often does pay handsomely and in which there is no guarantee that justice will prevail.

The sets and costumes look great and the production looks far more expensive than you’d expect from a television series. Desilu obviously had high hopes for this series and they pulled out all the stops to make it look impressive.



This opening episode is included on the first disc of the Region 4 Untouchables boxed set and includes introductions to the two parts of the episode by Walter Winchell and Desi Arnaz (head honcho of Desilu). Picture and sound quality are both very good.

Don’t expect historical accuracy but with that minor caveat this is really a must-see for film noir fans as well as fans of classic American television at its best. Highly recommended.