#film noir
Rope of Sand 1949
A noirish desert melodrama recalling Casablanca given presence of several members of the cast.
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My holiday sale is ON! All month, enjoy 15% off every item and get a FREE 4x6" print with any purchase (no minimum spend) at my Etsy shop. Specify the title of the artwork at checkout. But that’s not all!
For TWO days only, use your American Express card to spend $20 or more on Etsy and receive a $10 credit towards your next purchase. Ends December 5 at 11:59 PM ET. Etsy credit expires Dec 31, 2018. *U.S. only.
Happy Holidays! Shown here is my illustration of Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s film THE BIRDS, part of my 13 Hitchcock Blondes series (limited edition prints available in two colors and multiple sizes and types of paper).
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My Black Friday sale is my biggest this year. 20% off every item! Prints, tote bags, magnets, and original art available at my Etsy shop. My paintings of Karen Black (no pun intended) in Hitchcock’s Family Plot, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest, and Madeleine Carroll in Secret Agent, all part of my 13 Hitchcock Blondes series. They are sold individually and also in a set with 10 other blondes.
-– Elizabeth Yoo
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My artwork of Marie Laforêt in Claude Chabrol’s 1965 film Blue Panther aka Marie-Chantal vs. Doctor Kha is part of my 15% off sale at my Etsy shop which lasts until the end of this month. 136 items for femme fatales and lovers of classic cinema
Happy Hitchcocktober! I’m having an ALL MONTH sale of my art at my Etsy store ➡️ www.etsy.com/shop/RuneWorksProductions. 15% off EVERY item (Hitchcock and non-Hitchcock) and a free tote bag if you spend over $85. Let’s celebrate the master of suspense, his fair-haired leading ladies, and the month of horror culminating in Halloween!
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My series of 13 Hitchcock Blondes is now also sold in two different size sets at my Etsy store! ➡️ www.etsy.com/shop/RuneWorksProductions. If you can’t decide, you can get all of the prints for a lower price than buying them all individually. For now, sets are sold in sizes 9x6" and 6x4". This purchase comes with a FREE Tippi Hedren Birds magnet! And remember you get 15% off every item ALL month long as part of my Hitchcocktober sale!
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National Classic Movie Day: Four Films Noir
National Classic Movie Day: Four Films Noir
Our friends at the Classic Film & TV Café created and celebrate National Classic Movie Day on May 16 every year. The celebration takes place across social media, but the main event is a blogathon on a special classic film related theme. This year participating blogs will write about their Four Favorite Noir. Here are mine after much rumination.
Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past (1947)
I start…
“It would have been so different if you hadn’t run away. It would have been you instead of Walter. Or if you had stopped me. When I lifted the cane, why didn’t you stop me? You know how much I hated her. Why didn’t you stop me?”
In April, TCM celebrates all things Oscar with their 31 DAYS OF OSCAR programming, and it frankly boggles my mind how Barbara Stanwyck never won a competitive Academy Award. She received nominations for STELLA DALLAS (‘37), BALL OF FIRE (‘41), DOUBLE INDEMNITY (‘44) and SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (‘48). She was such a good, solid actress. Starting off as a Broadway chorus girl, Stanwyck had been honing her craft in film since 1929. Never really the sweet, ingenue, girl-next-door type, there was often an edge and feistiness to even her most sympathetic characters. The bulk of the 1930s saw her in dramas, but THE MAD MISS MANTON (‘38) unlocked the screwball door.
It turns out Stanwyck could do comedy and drama (no easy feat being a double threat) and sling a line with the best of ’em. On second thought, perhaps she is a triple threat because she could do Westerns (I never saw Bette Davis gallop on a horse and no, rear screen projections don’t count). Or maybe even a quadruple threat because she could dance: (did you see her do that split in LADY OF BURLESQUE, ‘43)? In the 40’s, Stanwyck jumped another hurdle as she crossed the threshold into stone-cold, lethal ladyhood with DOUBLE INDEMNITY.
It’s often too easy to say someone is a good girl or bad guy. As soon as you ask WHY one does what one does…you realize folks are a little more complex than either or. That’s where I put Stanwyck as she delves into the dark side with THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. I must have seen this movie, conservatively speaking, at least 11,329,853 times since the 1960s. It’s one of my top five favorite films. Stanwyck is great in this. I see her Martha Ivers as a woman trapped. The entire cast is terrific. Everyone fulfills the trope of characters we’ve become familiar with in the world of film noir. Along with Stanwyck, the film stars Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and in his first screen appearance, Kirk Douglas as Stanwyck’s husband, Walter O’Neil.
Scott’s character here is a girl more on the good side than bad side of noir, and who’s been hurt by men…victimized. Oh, we see she knows she appeals to men, and they want to give her things. But then she’s often left holding the bag. In MARTHA IVERS she’s on parole and will be used by the law to corner Heflin. But before she betrays him, they’ve got a nice budding relationship going. She’s a little wary and can take care of herself, but ultimately she’s a lost, hurt pup. Composer Miklós Rózsa underscores her vulnerability with sweet romantic violins. She has no hidden agenda and just wants a ride out of town in the opposite direction the law wants to send her. She falls for Heflin. This time she might’ve picked right: a man who wants nothing from her. But before they go forward, he must go back.
It took me 40 years of watching this movie to really fall for Van Heflin and now…I’m hooked. I really like him in this film. Heflin plays Sam Masterson, the usual protagonist you see in film noir: the flippant, wise-ass, smart aleck: “The road turned and I didn’t.” He roams from thing to thing…wears the requisite fedora. Sam is easy, breezy. And he stumbles into his past. While Walter might not bruise an olive, Sam doesn’t back away from a fight. Sam shows us a glimpse of hurt when he talks about his “people” who abandoned him. He’s sensitive to the hard-luck girl he picks up along the way without taking advantage of her. He’s also an opportunist. He figures out that from asking D.A. Walter for a favor, it might land him in the chips if he plays his cards right.
As an actor, Heflin faces the big kahuna in this movie: Stanwyck. This is their first pairing but it wouldn’t be their last. They co-star in EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (‘48) and B.F.’s DAUGHTER (‘49). They’re both so accomplished opposite each other. Stanwyck has had some dashing leading men in her career, but for my money…very, very few of them can hold a candle with her like Van Heflin.
The Oscars likes Acting ( with a capital “A” ). I’ll begrudgingly admit, Stanwyck’s four Oscar-nominations come from showier performances. In them, she’s a terrorized, self-sacrificing, pistol of a showgirl with a cheap blonde wig living with some squirrely professors and wants her lover to murder her husband. She’s not showy in MARTHA IVERS though she does run a gamut of emotions and attitudes on her journey, and nothing beats Stanwyck when she has to desperately plead. Whether she’s steely, contemptuous, dismissive, sarcastic, desperate, desirous, loving or volcanic, Barbara Stanwyck has many gears she can expertly shift into. And any one of them should garner her an Oscar.
THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is one of the best films noir. Riveting in how it unspools events, it’s all a noir should be, even without the flashback and narration. And please keep your eye out for Ann Doran’s five-minute bit as a secretary. She’s a dream. Simply a dream. They say you can’t go home again. It’s especially true in film noir. Well, time to watch the movie once more. Coming up on my 11,329,854th time.
