Paint it black: British Noir hits the silver screen, 2/5-2/11

Brighter than a bouquet full of Sundays. . .  Photo: Rialto Pictures

Exemplifying the kaleidoscope that is film noir are five British crime pictures distributed by reissue specialists Rialto Pictures and showing at The Nuart from Friday, February 5 to Thursday, February 11. 

Among the usual suspects is the undisputed masterpiece of the bunch, Carol Reed's second collaboration with author Graham Greene, The Third Man (1949), starring Orson Welles as his second most famous alter-ego, Harry Lime, and Joseph Cotton, as his amateur sleuth of a pal, Holly Martins.  How much Welles might have influenced Reed's direction becomes a moot point when in the general context of crime films of that era since many of them (whether British, American, or French, and including Welles') owe a debt to German Expressionism of the previous 30 years, as is evident with all the films on display in this retrospective.  Besides The Third Man, the series also includes the first Greene-Reed partnership, The Fallen Idol (1948), a film whose existence in American popular culture is usually not much more than a footnote to the more famous collaboration, as it shall, regrettably, remain here.  (Their third collaboration, Our Man in Havana (1959) hardly gets mentioned at all.)  However unfortunately overshadowed by its successor, The Fallen Idol's long shelf-life as a classic entry in the canon of British cinema is thankfully maintained by the written page, academia, and critic circles.  One need not see The Fallen Idol to have a better understanding of The Third Man's Swiss clock-like precision.  Rather, one sees it (or any of Reed's other excellent but seldom seen films, for that matter) to better understand that Reed needed little help when it came to directing a crackerjack of a film.

The odd man out in this lineup is 1960's Peeping Tom, typically regarded as the proto-slasher film, going so far as having its main character a maker of snuff films serial killer.  Released three months before Psycho, Michael Powell's film is the one of the two that really serves as the template for the splatter films that begin to trickle in a whole decade later and the one that would inspire Mario Bava a few of years later on his early contributions to the slasher.  Psycho might be the film that North American horror directors of the '70s and '80s refer to as their biggest influence, but it's Peeping Tom's manifesto they're following right down to its prediliction for invention when offing pretty maids, all in a row.  Not likely to have thought of Peeping Tom as a film noir on my own anymore than I think of Psycho as a film noir.  But for the rare opportunity to see it on the big screen, I'll go along with it.

This leaves us with the two recently dug up gems, smoldering shards of black coal still clinging to them.  It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) tells the splintered story of an escaped convict dropping in on his one-time moll, now a desperate housewife.  What begins as rudimentary film noir fodder dissolves into a rogue's gallery of losers with intertwined stories, presaging the novel-like influence that would become the rage decades later with such crime films as Pulp Fiction, Layer Cake, and all of Guy Ritchie's "important" work. 

Finally, the series' pièce de résistance is a highly complex Graham Greene adaptation which, admittedly, deserves pages and pages worth of analysis which cannot be afforded here.  Scripted by Greene himself, the seldom-seen Brighton Rock (1947), stars a baby face Richard Attenborough (Academy-award winning director of Gandhi, star of Jurassic Park) as Pinkie Brown, a 17 year-old, fire and brimstone-fearing Catholic, psychopathic monster, who shares the mold from which White Heat's Cody Jarrett would be cast two years later.  A sun-drenched noir propelled by brisk, economical editing and rich performances (including a creepy turn by future Dr. Who, William Hartnell), Brighton also spins the genre on its ear as it has all the elements of a film noir, but, much like its partner in crime Sunday, decides to eschew the clichés for a breath of fresh air. 

Betraying Greene as the "Catholic writer" that he was, the movie, much like its source, doubles as deft criticism against the hypocrisy inherent in Catholicism.  But in the context of film noir, the film's most devilishly delicious conceit is its manipulation and contortion of the femme fatale archetype to fit Greene's religious ulterior designs.  A staunchly devout Catholic girl seduced by the opulence of sin, Pinkie's girl Rose unwittingly becomes the Wrath of God itself in the guise of a lamb to the slaughter, ultimately pushing Pinkie to his mortal and spiritual downfall (it's no lazy coincidence that all the deaths occur by descending).  In her first acting role, Carol Marsh plays the simpleton waitress with all the grace of a deer stuck in headlights, a perfect characterization as Rose's purity, innocence, and unwavering love reveal themselves as carrying the will of a power much higher than hers, one which disposes of the scourges of humanity (well, of Brighton, anyway), one by one.  In the end, she is magnanimously rewarded by being spared a much deeper heartache than the loss of her true love.  "You or I cannot fathom the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," Mother Superior chimes in at the film's coda.  Amen, sister. 

Ironically, the film version's "happy" ending was happily tacked on by Greene at the behest of the studio, and in it there's a simulacrum of hope that reverbarates long after the story is over.  Greene indeed has the last laugh, replacing the novel's famous cruel ending with one that is brilliant, lyrical, tragic, and haunting all in the same beat.  My vote for the proto-slasher of the bunch.

This is one of the best film noirs this enthusiast of the genre has ever seen. 

Here's your chance to see Brighton Rock (as of now, it is not officially available on DVD in the US) so that you know what the buzz is all about when the remake hits theaters later this year.    

For more info:  http://www.rialtopictures.com