PaulusLoZebra

Douglas Sirk delivers a very fine film noir crime mystery and romantic drama with Lured. He and producer Hunt Stromberg deserve credit for assembling all the ingredients for success. It's a clever, suspenseful story, with a menacing London it its eerie backdrop. The cinematography by William Daniels is excellent, capturing mood and nuance and beauty. Lucille Ball is outstanding, she is entirely believable and vulnerable despite her immense beauty and glamour. And, she's got an amazing cast to support her, notably George Sanders, Charles Coburn, Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Joseph Calleia, Alan Mowbraty and George Zucco. The rapport between Ball and Sanders, and between Ball and Coburn, seen effortless. The gowns and sets are luxurious, the sense of menace and dread palpable. Go Lucy !

Henry Hathaway's The Dark Corner is a well crafted detective noir with lots of gritty NYC ambiance. One of its many strengths is that it moves along quickly, it packs a lot of story into 99 minutes. Another is the cinematography. It's shot by Joe MacDonald and the film is full of great shots and atmospheric uses of light and shadow. Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb and William Bendix stand out, they bring a lot of personality to the screen. Mark Stevens, Kurt Kreuger and Cathy Downs are less interesting, but Stevens, as the protagonist, makes up for his lack of charisma with an earnestness that transmits well the plight of his character. Leo Rosten's story is clever and challenging, like a good noir should be. The screenplay and dialogue are occasionally a bit simplistic, but those are brief moments and the film never dwells too long on any scene.

I wanted to like Bertrand Blier's Buffet Froid, because I have such great memories of his father Bernard Blier, star of this film alongside the talented Gerard Depardieu. And the film has a lot going for it: a great cast (Blier, Depardieu, Genevieve Page, Carole Bouquet, Jean Carmet, Michel Serrault, and others); excellent cinematography, fine sets and great location shots. I am a fan of comedy, black comedy, whimsy and even of (some) absurdist cinema. I am also willing to "suspend disbelief" so that an absurdist film's non-traditional plot, timeline and dialogue can transmit the author's desired effects, which might include the anxiety, the meaninglessness of life, the loneliness of modern living, dehumanization, etc. And, finally, this story includes a few crimes that need to be figured out, so there is alot to potentially enjoy.

In the end, the film was contrived and boring. Its wry or slapstick moments and all those things listed above cannot relieve the tedium. It seems "too clever by half", a hyper-intellectual attempt to transmit a sense of the absurd through comedy. It didn't transmit anything to me except boredom.