Posted: 06/14/02

Live at The Palm Springs
Film Noir Festival
by A.K. Rode

The final day of the festival began with Suddenly (1954) starring Frank Sinatra as a cold-blooded hitman who holds a family (Nancy Gates, James Gleason and Kim Charney) hostage while preparing to shoot the President of the United States from their front window. Sterling Hayden as the Sheriff is paired off against Frank in a dramatic and effective film. Sinatra followed up his Academy Award winning performance in From Here to Eternity (1953) with this equally compelling and often overlooked gem.

The afternoon screenings were extra special for lovers of film noir. Detour (1945), is a film that actually merits its legendary cult status. Made for a piddling $30,000 in six days, this fatalistic essay based on a Martin Goldsmith novel captivated the audience for 63 thrilling minutes. In voiceover flashback, Tom Neal plays Roberts, a broke nightclub piano player who hitches a ride with a shady bookmaker who dies on the way to California. Not wanting to be blamed, Neal assumes the man's identity, takes his car and proceeds to L.A. On the way, he picks up hitchhiker Vera (Ann Savage) who knows the bookie from an earlier encounter. When she turns on Roberts with a verbal broadside screech: "Where'd you hide the body!" his fate comes up snake eyes. The remainder of this film is a dark tour through the bowels of hell with Ann Savage portraying the most rabid vixen in film noir history.

When Miss Savage took the stage, she got a standing ovation for a performance accurately described as a "part of a lifetime." She gave full credit to legendary Poverty Row director Edgar G. Ulmer for developing her character and the overall success of this film on a shoestring budget. For example, Ulmer had her exchange her carefully coiffured hairstyle for locks streaked with cold crème sans any makeup. Ulmer urged her to accelerate an already rapid and terse way of delivering lines, creating a character well described by Eddie Muller as a "harpy from hell." Savage talked about her co-star in this and three other films, Tom Neal ("a devil") whom she once had to belt across the chops for being fresh. She also spoke with great dignity and composure about her post screen life as a happy wife left bereft by her husband's passing and her renewal in a new life that included being a private airplane pilot. It is worth mentioning that Miss Savage attended nearly every film on the three-day festival calendar, graciously signing autographs and visiting with friends and fans. Ann Savage is clearly a class act.

Nightmare Alley (1947) one of the darkest and best films of the 1940's followed Detour on the Sunday bill. A classic tale of an amoral carnival performer's rise and fall, it is a beautifully acted and compelling story. Tyrone Power stars in a career-stretching role with Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell, Helen Walker and Mike Mazurki. Directed by Edmund Goulding, this film has been tied up for years over rights squabbles between 20th Century Fox and the estate of the late producer, Georgie Jessel. This rare print, obtained by Dark Film Discussions Marc Dolezal, moved special guest Coleen Gray to tears. Miss Gray began by reverentially discussing co-star Tyrone Power whom she was so in awe of that a personal relationship proved impossible. She discussed her own screen career that was launched with three blockbusters, Kiss of Death, Nightmare Alley and Red River. She mentioned ruefully that while she prevailed upon fellow Nebraskan, Darryl F.Zanuck to lend her out for Nightmare Alley, he was not inclined to chase her around his desk. She also shared colorful recollections about legendary directors, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway and Edmund Goulding. Of Stanley Kubrick, director of The Killing (1956), Gray commented dryly that what she received from the heralded Kubrick was "no direction" at all.

The Palm Springs Film Noir Festival's final screening was Boomerang! (1947). Introduced by Marc Dolezal and film historian Marc Kagan, this Elia Kazan directed picture followed a docudrama lineage which began with Henry Hathaway's The House on 92nd Street (1945) and was later continued by The Naked City (1948). Dramatized from a true story, a minister is shot dead in a small New England town, an innocent man (Arthur Kennedy) is railroaded and a courageous D.A. (Dana Andrews) faces down the political establishment and prevailing lemotion to prove Kennedy's innocence. A character actor's Hall of Fame is on display in this excellent film: Lee Cobb, Sam Levene, Karl Malden, Taylor Holmes, Ed Begley among others. This movie is one of Kazan's most overlooked works made after Gentleman's Agreement and before Panic in the Streets. It was a great choice for the festival closer. I am already making my plans for next year's noir festival in the desert. It was simply a great time.

A.K. Rode is a writer who lives in San Diego, California.

Got a problem? Email A.K. at filmmonthly@hotmail.com