panic in the streets

Panic in the Streets
Directed by Elia Kazan
Screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Richard Murphy
Based on the story “Quarantine and Some Like ‘Em Cold” by Edna and Edward Anhart
Released 1950 by Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Jack Palance, Barbara Bel Geddes, Zero Mostel

Panic in the Streets was made at the height of the “Communist witchhunts” by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the 1950s. The atmosphere of a Soviet invasion hung like a sinister sunlight out to burn the brittle epidermises of the American society. It was probably one reason why Elia Kazan decided to helm a film of propagandist paranoia as an appropriate response to the growing unease of the public regarding Communism.

Clinton Reed (Widmark) is a physician who works for the Public Health Service and is an expert in communicable diseases. He wears his military-style uniform as, primarily, a form of intimidation and unmissable fact to proclaim that he is in-charge. Whether that brings him a sense of personal satisfaction, it somehow inhibits him from pursuing a case that is beyond the juridisction the epaulets on his drabs bequeaths him. When a homicide victim turns up to be an index case of a contagious pneumonic plague, Reed is forced to team up with Police Captain Tom Warren (Douglas) to find out who killed the man who, in fact, maybe a carrier of the plague as a result of a direct contact with the deceased.

The film is festooned with undertones of the public suspicion of Communism and Hollywood’s immediate reply to the threat. Interestingly, the virus as depicted in the film is metaphorically the specific ideology meant to contaminate the unknowing public, which during that time, Communism was rapidly gaining the upperhand. It would also be interesting to notice that this will be the last film Kazan will make with Zero Mostel who plays the killer’s sidekick (Fitch); and Barbara Bel Geddes who plays Widmark’s love half, before the two will be blacklisted by the committee. Kazan, on the other hand, would testify at the hearing but will incur the ire of much of his peers.

Originally titled Outbreak, the film emphasizes on the hunt for the killer rather than the ‘what-ifs’. Albeit lacking modern scientific basis for Reed’s monologue at a conference in the early sequence, it still manages to give certain credibility to the main plot which is to make it as a hardboiled police procedural. Kazan’s neorealistic influences provide significant contribution to its development—which, for example, is the choice of location shooting in New Orleans, and the inclusion of most of the city’s citizens and inhabitants in the cast.

Jack Palance, in his cinematic debut, plays the ruthless gangster/killer Blackie, and along with two of his henchmen Fitch (Mostel) and Poldi, unknowingly become the target of the manhunt. The climactic chase scene results in a predictable conclusion, with the top-billed actor getting all the credit. It seems the disparity that exists between the police force and an attached government official has been linked by a thin thread of popcorn drama.

Nonetheless, the film has moments, of course. It visually represents the microcosm of a 1950s New Orleans, where backstreets reveal a hodgepodge of a poverty-stricken populace and endless social canker amidst a milieu of a terrifying would-be medical catastrophe. And despite the facetiousness of the cause for alarm (evidently, pneumonic plague was still considered as an incurable disease during the early to the middle part of the 20th century—though rare cases are continued to be reported), it manages to instill widespread terror. Furthermore, Kazan’s handiwork on the film is a fitting prelude to his award-winning On the Waterfront, shot four-years later.

the postman always rings twice

The Postman Always Rings Twice
Directed by: Tay Garnett
Screenplay by: Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch
Based on a novel by James M. Cain
Released 1946 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer
Cast: John Garfield, Lana Turner, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, Cecil Kellaway

Tay Garnett’s potboiler film-noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), is perhaps worthy to be lined up together with Wilder’s earlier noir masterpiece Double Indemnity (1944) as two of the greatest films that grasp the genre with masterful precision. And to notice that both of them were written by former journalist James M. Cain, who together with other writers such Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, form the core of hardboiled crime fiction that would create an entirely new kind of literary genus.

Frank Chambers (Garfield) is a drifter with an “itchy feet”, walks into a lonely hamburger outpost in the middle of Pacific Coast Highway after a hitchhike. He is greeted by the owner of the place, Nick Smith (Kellaway), and brings him in. The camera, then pans into a corner of the screen to allow us to see the sign “Man Wanted” hanging on a tree branch (to think of the double meaning of it is a funny thing indeed).

A lipstick rolls across the room and into Chambers’ foot, and again, we are treated to a similar reaction as that of Chambers. Standing at the edge of a portico is Nick Smith’s wife, Cora (Turner). A heaving sigh at the perfectly-proportioned structure of a woman, at this time we are not aware of how cunning and dangerous she is going to be. Chambers will it discover later, but not before he will plunge headfirst into her scheming ways, and an eventual seduction that will spiral out of control.

“Threesome”
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a menage-a-trois. From the arrival of Frank Chambers to the entrance of Cora Smith, it reeks of utmost sexuality. We can also deduce of Nick Smith’s incapacity to perform his marital obligations to Cora. The film is a love story that traverses the road-often-traveled of noirs: a discontented wife against the backdrop of a tumultous marriage, and an accidental third-party to drag into the whole mess of a despicable crime just to liberate herself from an impregnable chain.

At first, there is the unwanted chemistry that exists between the two characters: Frank’s attempt at flirtations, and Cora’s disdain for the new guy. Perhaps, we can say that their love-hate relationship only materializes the propensities to perform a hideous deed later on. They fall in lust, they fall in love, they defy the norms of a society that during those times adhere to stringent morality. What Nick lacks, Frank excels at it. He possesses the uncanny ability to sweep a woman off her feet and coerce her to do what is unthinkable.

Cora, on the other hand, is more smarter than he is. However, she conceals it along with an emotional baggage, to which she is prepared to use at an opportune moment. She is the perennial femme fatale—a preying mantis who would gobble every man who strays into her territory—and similarly with Walter Neff of Double Indemnity, Frank Chambers falls into the culvert of her insidious character.

Nick Smith, is shamefully, the film’s scapegoat. The bastion of conventionality. The unassuming old man, though for some reason, he is clearly aware of what is transpiring between his wife and the stranger he picked up. Doing nothing about it, is probably what makes him high. He is a voyeur of some sort. His paroxyms arrive at seeing his wife and another man. I think what is missing in their arrangement is the blunt agreement of both parties concerned.

Crime and Punishment
When the crime is committed, there is nothing spectacular about it. They botch the initial attempt and we would still anticipate a rerun. The moment they succeeded in doing it, the suspense commences.

Hume Cronyn plays Arthur Keats, Cora’s sardonic lawyer, who is as equally cunning as she is. Although much of the second part of the film revolves around the aftermath of the couple’s devilish ways, it is interesting to notice Keats’ struggle for Cora’s attention. He is evidently hitting on her, but knows of Cora’s guilt that probably pursuing it would do more harm than good on him. His methods clearly outmaneuver his rival, DA Kyle Sackett (Ames), who is relentless on bringing the couple to justice for what they did.

Keats and Sackett embody the underbelly of an upright justice system, whose methodologies of handling criminal cases are as crooked as the criminal themselves. They manipulate each other, seeking for loopholes to bury the hatchet onto one’s head. Needless to say, one’s attempt is another one’s triumph and eventually let the perpetrators of the crime get away scot-free. The machinations of the courtroom scenes somehow brings a sort of introduction to the film’s second part—from where a new beginning gradually takes shape.

The overall flavor of the film lies not on the couple’s search for the perfect crime, but on the illicit relationship between Frank Chambers and Cora Smith. As opposite sides of the coin, they could never be together even if they think they are, only the fantasy of it remains the loosening bond that unites them both.

double indemnity

Double Indemnity
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler
Based on the novel by James M. Cain
Copyright 1944 by Universal Pictures
Cast: Fred McMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

They say the greatest film noir ever made is Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944). And perhaps, the one that would become the barometer of the array of films that carry a similar theme and atmosphere.

Walter Neff played by Fred McMurray arrives at a stuccoed Spanish mansion owned by an oil magnate, in the hope of getting him to affix the renewal papers for a lapsed auto insurance. Instead, he is greeted by the other half, Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), who emerges partially-wrapped in what Cain would write in his novel as “house pajamas”. From their initial rendezvous, a chemistry is sparked; a flame ignites without the likelihood of getting it extinguished. Furthermore, it would consume Neff with a backdraft of seduction and the avoidable, yet, foreseeable act of murder.

“I Did It For the Woman”
Double Indemnity put on-screen the pulpiness of pulp fiction. It was made at a time of cinematic purity, when less-than-moral elements such as infidelity and/or murder were considered inappropriate for a morally-staunched America. But behind the façade of a spit-shined image of a country then embroiled in a World War, the proliferated pulps of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain had transformed the public perception of the literary culture.

Cain’s femme fatale, Phyllis, the strikingly beautiful yet nefariously-scheming blonde, is surprisingly different from what the novel had described her. She is more submissive, the aggression reveals a personality capable of creating a monster out of someone ordinary—in this case, the unwilling victim of her venomous appeal is the unknowing insurance agent Walter Neff. She is definitive manipulator, so to speak, a forlorn woman scathed by the circumstances of her marriage that her decision of murder further elevates one’s sympathy for her to exploit.

Neff’s descriptive narration proves a likely revelation of Phyllis Dietrichson, even at the beginning of the film.

"It was mid-afternoon, and it's funny, I can still remember the
smell of honeysuckle all along that block. I felt like a million.
There was no way in all this world I could have known that murder
sometimes can smell like honeysuckle..."

Love, as Neff would subconsciously discover later, turns someone into a completely helpless sucker.

“I Did It For the Money”
Most film noirs revolve around an individual’s appetite for money. Whether it is a primary or a secondary need, it contributes to the whole spectrum of the plot. People would kill for money. The root of all evil, they say, but the catalyst for the desire to commit such a deplorable deed.

The title refers to a specific clause on insurance policies as a come-on for prospective clients. It meant that the agency would pay twice the contract’s face value on cases of accidental death. In the film, the double indemnity is the hundred-thousand dollar equivalent if the cause of death occurs near/in/on a railroad track. Committing the crime, as it turns out, depends on a flawless blueprint. Perhaps one aspect of most successful noirs is its ability to magnify the process of planning to build-up the suspense later on.

Albeit a sinister theme, the film does not divert from the usual crime does not pay cliché. There is the overall atmosphere of a perfect crime, but it would not be, because of the presence of Neff’s superior, Barton Keyes (Robinson), who, for the most part of the film relies on his internal little man to check out hunches. It is Keyes who will provide the suspense and the one who will counterbalance a probable hackneyed resolution. He follows his intuitions and although the weight of suspicion almost brings him to discover the identity of the perpetrators, Keyes dismisses the rationality of it.

Which probably explains his relationship with Neff. Their affinity extends the extra mile that he will stick out his neck for Neff, but he will not allow Neff to get away with it. Their complex friendship is not just caused by the length of their acquaintance, but perhaps of one’s recognition and respect for the other—evidently illustrated by Neff’s incessant act of lighting Keyes’ cigar.

Double Indemnity also trudges the subject of sexuality, though without the graphic vulgarities that would pepper a similarly-themed movie of the 80s or 90s (think Kasdan’s Body Heat or the Rafelson remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice). It is interesting to note of Neff’s flirtations with Phyllis, but at the same time we are treated to brain itches, instead. We are left with questions of the consummation of their affair, however, Wilder would only leave us with mere insinuations.

Raymond Chandler supplied the immediacy of the dialogues, which were particularly engaging, in view of the fact of his background on the genre. However, it was Wilder’s prestidigitating hand that fit that pieces, with references to early German expressionistic styles that he would deny on later interviews regarding the film. Double Indemnity opened up an entire new dimension on the art of filmmaking, particularly on the breaking of taboos that for years had precluded an existing literary form to be recognized.