NOT Film Noir. Okay, Maybe a little.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Clash by Night
ksequoia — 20 years ago(July 12, 2005 03:57 AM)
Included in Warner Bros. 5 DVD Set "Film Noir Series 2", I found this to be an entertaining though stagy film. I am a Robert Ryan fan and a HUGE Film Noir Fan, not to mention Fritz Lang. I know this is based on a play, where Robert Ryan actually performed in the stage production 10 years earlier in the same role, but Noir?, it really isn't.
The only noirish elements are the camera angles, lighting, and sharp black and white contrasts. Otherwise it's a stagy drama. All the performance are good, standing out is Paul Douglas as Jerry.
Ryan is good, and once again, cast against type, though he fell for this many times. In real life he was a gentle pacifist. He seemingly always got to play the "heavy".
Marilyn Monroe was just adequate as Peggy.
Stanwyck was doing her Stanwyck thing, and where there are no lapels on a man to grab, she'll try it with an undershirt! She's so much better in "Double Indemnity" and "Sorry, Wrong Number". This was part of a long string of losers for her - followed immediately by "Jeopardy" (B garbage) and even later by the not so successful "Crime Of Passion", another (failed) attempt at Noir. I'd rather have seen Gloria Grahame or even Joan Crawford in this role. Oh, and she was 45 when she made this and her character has a baby. How cute.
Fritz Lang had done SOOOOOOO much better - "M", "Woman In The Window", "Scarlett Street" - 3 of his finest noirs. This was a clean miss. -
smulkin — 20 years ago(October 02, 2005 05:22 PM)
"Film Noir is a film style and mood primarily associated with crime films, that portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existential world." - Wikipedia
Even though this is not a crime story in the legal sense, it is one in the moral sense. It also has the sense of moral ambiguity that makes a good Noir. Mae's crime is motivated by her intense dissatisfaction with life: her status as a woman.
The world it is set in is certainly Nihilistic and Existential. I used to live in Monterey; A bugger bunch of car collecting, golf playing beep you never saw. -
zygimantas — 20 years ago(December 26, 2005 08:18 AM)
I agree with you, it's dark drama. The redemption kind of took away the edge of the 'sick society' that is kind of important in noir films, although without that little detail of the story the feel and content of the movie would have been very characteristically noir.
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diablo-dangel — 18 years ago(June 07, 2007 09:39 AM)
The film does contain the noir elements of the femme-fatal and the labyrinth, though Jerry isn't drawn too deeply into the maze. He isn't compelled to find something that draws him deeper into complications, nor does he abandon himself to Mae's sexuality. Also, in the end, the femme-fatal is morally redeemed. I thought it was more like Italian neo-realism, a close cousin of film noir though a little stagy for neo-realism.
So, it is an RKO studio picture, where many noir films were made, but it doesn't quite fit the film noir genre. -
AlanSquier — 18 years ago(July 17, 2007 04:49 AM)
I disagree. Film noir depends on both plot and cinematography. If noir has nothing to do with plot, how did writers like Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Jim Thompson, James Elroy, etc. get classified as basic noir authors?
Captain Warren 'Rip' Murdock: I'm the brass-knuckles-in-the-teeth-to-dance-time type. -
AlanSquier — 18 years ago(July 21, 2007 11:28 PM)
Hey, pal, I'm sorry, but the dictionary disagrees with you. While it gives film noir as the most common meaning of the term, it is quite permissable to apply the term to literature.
noir (nwr)
adj.- Of or relating to the film noir genre.
- Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
- Suggestive of danger or violence.
[Short for film noir + Sense 2, short for French roman noir, black novel.]
noirish adj.
The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright
2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
You'll note that the reference to crime literature emphasizes tough, cynical characters and bleak settings. You will find such in the writings of Dashell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, James Cain, Jim Thompson, Michael Connelly, James Elroy, and even Robert B. Parker especially in his Jesse Stone novels.
True, their stories are often radically different from each other just as The Maltese Falcon is radically different from Double Indemnity. That does not keep both from being, in the case of the movies, film noir and in the case of the novels, noir.
BTW, noir can also apply to wine such as pinot noir.
Captain Warren 'Rip' Murdock: I'm the brass-knuckles-in-the-teeth-to-dance-time type.
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Crawfordfan — 18 years ago(July 25, 2007 03:00 PM)
I'm very fond of Clash by Night, for many reasons. Yes, Lang, Stanwyck and Ryan are all closely associated with the Noir cycle or genre. But then so is the movie's cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past; Stranger on the Third Floor; Blue Gardenia; Where Danger Lives etc).
It is surely the combination of a sense of disillusionment, cynism and alienation in the characters (esp. Stanwyck's Mae Doyle), with the chiarascuro lighting, which creates a noir world in which hopes and dreams are dashed on the rocks of frustation and despair. Yes, these elements are also associated with the melodrama (Sirk, Ray etc), and like Mildred Pierce, and The Reckless Moment, Clash is a female-centred noir, which surely critiques the family, and how society expects women to conform to patriarchal standards: (Stanwyck's frustration in the kitchen brilliantly captured by the screaming coffee pot!). Starting off like Streetcar Named Desire, with jaded Mae returning to her roots, falling in with a loveable simpleton but secretly hankering after cynical loser, Ryan, I love how this sour noir spits in the face of war-time cinematic sentiment (and its relation to sacrifice): watch the beach scene between Mae and Earl, with the latter trying to recreate the twin cigarette scene from Now Voyager: lighting a cigarette he passes it to Mae, who, unimpressed, tosses it over her shoulder, before lighting one of her own! Simply devastating, I laugh every time!
Finally, I disagree with a previous response which slates Monroe's performance: on the contrary, I've seldom seen her tougher, and I can't think of another film in which, contrasting to her onscreen persona of defenceless femininity, she gets to slug a guy in the puss! Perhaps her performing against the grain is what they disliked? -
onepotato2 — 18 years ago(November 30, 2007 07:37 PM)
You'll note that the reference to crime literature emphasizes tough, cynical characters and bleak settings. You will find such in the writings of Dashell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, James Cain, Jim Thompson, Michael Connelly, James Elroy, and even Robert B. Parker especially in his Jesse Stone novels.
True, their stories are often radically different from each other just as The Maltese Falcon is radically different from Double Indemnity. That does not keep both from being, in the case of the movies, film noir and in the case of the novels, noir.
by - AlanSquier on Sat
This discussion is undermined by peoples preferences that noir contain only the narrow portion of noir that they like; a personal agenda. Another problem is the ignorance of what the term means as a category. Noir jumps genres ALL THE TIME. That's what's enjoyable about it. Cat People doesn't have a crime theme, or a hard-boiled detective; it's definitley noir. Dark Passage (Bogart & Bacall) lacks a femme fatale; it's basically a revenge/love story. Key Largo is considered noir; it's about being holed up in a hotel during a hurricane, and it's not cynical, it's corny as can be. Is Casablanca noir? All the motifs are missing there except, the man who can't escape his past.
From Wikipedia:
Film noirs embrace a variety of genres, from the gangster film to the police procedural to the so-called social problem picture While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing. Though noir is often associated with an urban setting, for example, many classic noirs take place mainly in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road, so setting can not be its genre determinant, as with the Western. Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of film noirs feature neither, so there is no character basis for genre designation as with the gangster film. Nor does it rely on anything as evident as the monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film, the speculative leaps of the science fiction film, or the song-and-dance routines of the musical.
A more analogous case is that of the screwball comedy, widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre"the screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some (but rarely and perhaps never all) of which are found in each of the genre's films.[3] However, because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style." -
WarpedRecord — 14 years ago(April 06, 2011 10:46 AM)
That's an excellent summation of this film, which is more like a Tennessee Williams potboiler than a noir. The performances are mostly fine, though with Marilyn Monroe I accept her weaknesses as an actresses as part of her "charm." Barbara Stanwyck is always a joy to watch, but the vacillating character was not typical of the strong dames she was best at playing. This is an entertaining little soaper, but I expected more. 7/10 stars.
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ajgenard — 13 years ago(December 14, 2012 12:08 AM)
In my eyes it's a real stretch to classify this film as noir. Every movie I've ever seen that's considered noir contains crime, several people end up dead, the lighting is very dark, and it's setting is a big city. In other words they focus on the seedy, gritty underbelly of urban society. Meanwhile in this film no crime takes place, no one dies nor is a weapon ever drawn, the lighting is rather bright, and it's set in a quaint coastal town. The only familiar element is the cynical ideologies. It's much more accurate to simply call this a melodrama.
At any rate, I was disappointed by the film. The plot kind of wanders aimlessly until it finds a real story in the final third. It ends too abruptly and leaves too many questions. The excellent acting (mainly from Barbara Stanwyck and Paul Douglas) offsets some of it's shortcomings but it's still pretty far from being a great film. And the whole business of "imitating Chinese" is enough to knock off a full star. That has to be the corniest, silliest, and most backwards cultural stereotype I've ever seen in a film - regardless of when it was produced and subsequently viewed. -
Grethiwha — 13 years ago(December 20, 2012 10:36 PM)
Agree about your reasoning for it not being a noir film. When I started watching it, I thought it would be a noir, probably just because it's a Fritz Lang film and I just assumed it since I knew nothing else about the film, but twenty minutes or so into it I realized it wasn't. Of course, evidently, a case can be made that it is Yeah, whether a movie fits into a genre is a silly debate.
Anyway, I actually loved the film. It reminded me in tone of Days of Wine and Roses. Perhaps even a bit more understated. Paul Douglas (I don't think I've seen any of his other movies) was really excellent and endearing (as like, the one non-misogynistic male character) and I really liked the way in his darker moments theres that fear he's gonna let the guys around him influence him to turn him into a wife-beater or something. Yeah,
Days of Misogyny and Roses
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As for the imitating Chinese, that was AMAZING. It was so awful! But yeah, I found it interesting as further establishing Earl as a ridiculous wanker, Jerry as flawed in the way he acts oblivious to Earl's flaws (almost intentionally it seems to me, like for the sake of keeping friendly), and Stanwyck's character, who didn''t seem amused, I'm not sure, she seemed to begrudge Jerry for laughing, for not seeing the bad in Earl. Which she of course becomes guilty of later yeah, I could have this all wrong. But anyway I don't blame the filmmakers for the Chinese impression (like I sort of do in Breakfast at Tiffany's), since it didn't come across to me like it was meant to be funny so much as to establish characters (in the 1952 context). And anyway, Jerry turns it around on Earl at the end, which was pretty rad.
Neat film. Flawed, sure, but I rather loved it.
grethiwha My Favourite Films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/Bw65XZIpkH8/ -
first-things-first — 12 years ago(January 22, 2014 03:22 PM)
I believe you nailed the directors intent with the imitation. As for the film's classification I agree that it doesn't seem to fit the film noir definition. A melodrama? Yes. I thought this was a good film until the ending. But the non-Hollywood ending prompted an additional star. A couple willing to see where it could go, instead of the hearts and flowers ending usually given when there's a child.
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