There are four other titles, including A Bullet For Joey, He Ran All The Way, Storm Fear, and Big House, U.S.A! Witness to Murder, now on blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume I, is merely one offering from that era of filmmaking. People needed the darkness to be acknowledged and, from 1944 to 1955, it was cinema’s prime celebrity as highly cinematographic films - cheaply made - fell onto the rain-soaked streets of Home Town, USA.
And the push to urban life had created an economic disparity that lingered long after any romantic ending did. There was too much poverty too much death and destruction too many wars. For about a decade, writers and directors could see that audiences weren’t interested in fairy tales anymore.
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It’s a natural response full of pessimism and fatalism and, as a result, it butters this reviewer’s bread. The film is darker in tone and, with an unexpected twist, absolutely crushes the truth with a heap of lies, thanks to a typewriter and a mental institute.įilm Noir, as a genre in film stems from the assault of way too many “Happy Endings” in Hollywood. The studio was in a race to get this out on the streets before Alfred Hitchcock’s film and, yes, while it hit theaters a month before Rear Window, history was not so kind in remembering it. If this film sounds a bit like Rear Window, there’s a reason. Fear, alienation, and paranoia follows as Sanders sets out to paint Stanwyck as insane, unstable, and eager to harass him about a murder he did not commit. Through it all, cinematographer John Alton challenges viewers with crisp shots of the city and shadowed shots of apartments, hallways, and offices. And the police buy into his story, ultimately forcing her into an insane asylum where the hits and twists keep coming. He types up threatening letters and then mails them to himself. Having successfully moved the body and later dumping it nude in Griffith Park, Sanders embarks on a crusade to paint Stanwyck as crazy. Is it any coincidence then that when we get to the instance asylum they are all women? But their doubts linger with her story and not with the ex-Nazi, who strikes them as trustworthy. Stanwyck calls the cops and they come over immediately, then - after hearing her accusations of murder - go across the street and thoroughly give Sanders the shakedown. It’s the type of city that Sanders thrives in. Los Angeles looks almost brand new as the filmmakers, using windy and stormy nights, present a very dangerous city.
Within seconds of beginning, the rich atmosphere in this black-and-white thriller from 1954 is firmly established marking it as classic film noir material as Stanwyck, alone in her apartment, finds herself without any support in a very dark and very expressive city. "In this set from Kino Lorber, all 5 films were newly remastered in HD!"
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