Fox Film Noir, Wave One
Call Northside 777 (January 31/99)
Call Northside 777 casts Jimmy Stewart as an apathetic reporter assigned to cover the execution of a death-row inmate accused of murder. The prisoner says that he's innocent, but Stewart (initially) does not believe him. Eventually, after reviewing the facts and speaking to a number of people close to the prisoner, he begins to believe him and starts his own investigation. Call Northside 777 is an overlong bore, as virtually every single scene in the film goes on much longer than it needs to. And to make things worse, the movie is presented in a quasi-documentary style, resulting in dry, humorless dialogue. Another problem is that many elements in the film are over-explained to an absurd degree. For example, there is a scene in which the prisoner is hooked up to a lie-detector. Now, since most audiences in 1948 likely had no idea what a lie-detector machine was, the characters spend far too much time explaining how it works. We even see the machine being calibrated for the prisoner, a process that takes about five minutes. This ten minute scene could have easily been cut in half. As for Stewart, none of his usual charm is present - as he is forced to play the character without emotion (perhaps because the film is based on a true story). Stewart looks like he's trapped in this role; you can see, ever-so-briefly, moments in which his engaging personality bubbles to the surface, but such moments are sparse. Call Northside 777 could have been an exciting, tension-filled thriller. Instead, it's technically flawless, but there's no heart.
out of
Laura (March 30/05)
Though it's often hailed as an ideal example of the film noir aesthetic, Laura is nevertheless a slightly overrated drama that's generally undone by a pronounced feeling of staginess. The story revolves around Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a hard-nosed detective who is assigned to the murder of a beautiful woman named Laura (Gene Tierney), and must wade through a long list of potential suspects. Director Otto Preminger does a nice job of imbuing the film with a variety of intriguing stylistic choices, yet the filmmaker is unable to inject life into some of the talkier sequences (of which there are many). Andrews is very good as the hard-as-nails detective, while Vincent Price effectively oozes sleaze as one of the possible murderers. The majority of the film plays out like a '40s version of Law and Order, with McPherson interrogating suspects and chasing down leads. While Laura certainly isn't a bad film, it's hard not to feel some disappointment given the heaps of praise it's received over the years.
out of
Panic in the Streets (March 18/05)
Panic in the Streets marked the beginning of Jack Palance's (then credited as Walter Jack Palance) cinematic career, and not surprisingly, the actor delivers an effectively sinister performance despite receiving a relatively small amount of screen time. The film kicks off with a poker game being held by the villainous Blackie (Palance), who doesn't take kindly to players taking off before the match is finished. After one such participant does exactly that, Blackie hunts him down and shoots him; unfortunately for Blackie, the dead man just happened to be infected with the plague. Now it's up to health official Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) and a squadron of cops to capture Blackie before he's able to pass the plague on to anyone else. Panic in the Streets has been directed by Elia Kazan, who does an effective job of keeping the pace brisk - until around the midway point, when the film's focus shifts away from Reed's investigation. Instead, screenwriter Richard Murphy places the emphasis on Reed's coping mechanisms in dealing with the stresses of his job (it's here that the film comes to a dead stop as Reed engages in a long, needless conversation with his wife that serves only to kill the story's momentum). Having said that, the movie does pick up towards the end as Reed and his men begin to close in on Blackie - leading up to an action-packed finale that's surprisingly tense. Both Widmark and Palance deliver effectively compelling performances, with the latter particularly good as the first evil character of his career.
