Love many movie genres, from sci-fi to silents to musicals to psychotronica to animation here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, but none more than film noir. After reading a magnificent piece on classical music in animated cartoons (most frequently employed by one Carl W. Stalling) by Vincent Alexander, this blogger turns his attentions to the vivid and expressive music of film noir.
Odds Against Tomorrow, a real and reel masterpiece directed by the master of all genres, Robert Wise, and one of the last but very, very best examples of hard-hitting film noir, features a killer score by John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet.
This is such an amazing and beautifully realized movie we wish that the ridiculously multi-talented Harry Belafonte, who stars as a young entertainer deeply in the throes of a gambling addiction, had continued further as an indie film producer (note: many years later, he produced The Angel Levine, Buck & The Preacher and Beat Street).
Louis Malle's film Elevator To The Gallows features an unbeatable combo: outstanding Miles Davis music, the brilliant acting of Jeanne Moreau and the director's original synthesis of film noir and French New Wave cinema stylings.
Among the hard-boiled American crime thrillers so beloved by the Malles, Chabrols, Truffauts and Jean-Pierre Melvilles of the world, the classic "find the bastard who murdered me" mystery D.O.A. remains a personal favorite.
The "Fisherman" nightclub in D.O.A. looks like the place to be for red hot jazz on a Saturday night. We sincerely hope the audience left generous tips.
As fate would have it, the writer of this blog shared big time enthusiasm for this excellent movie with an old and much-missed friend who passed in his sleep on Christmas 2020. . .So Mr. Blogmeister raises his goblet in a toast to my film buff compadre - and to the ace filmmaker who helmed D.O.A., producer, director and cinematographer Rudolf Maté, one of the all-time movie greats. Gotta love a guy who who worked making movies in the United States, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France and the United Kingdom!
As celebrated as Stanley Kubrick's spectacular 1960s and 1970s movies are, it's those early film noirs that may well be my personal favorites among the director's illustrious, provocative and flamboyant cinematic career. His second feature film, Killer's Kiss, shot in NYC, was an indie film made on a portion of a shoestring, but beautifully and strikingly shot and edited. Both the soundtracks and the cinematography in Killer's Kiss and The Killing are memorable.
The Killing = "all this noir - and Sterling Hayden, too."
We extend a respectful tip of the battered fedora to prolific poster Arthur Grant on Vimeo. Mr. Grant has done us the favor of singling out many film noir classics which feature incredible soundtracks. These include the delightfully corrosive Billy Wilder flick Ace in the Hole (sneering snark by Kirk Douglas, music by Hugo Friedhofer), The Big Combo (music by David Raksin, Mise-en-scène by Joseph H. "Gun Crazy" Lewis) and the unabashedly tacky and garish love triangle melodrama Desert Fury, featuring a terrific Miklos Rozsa soundtrack.
Frankly, the film the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog would choose, both for its soundtrack and truly cosmic understanding of the bottomless depths of an ever-spinning noir universe would be the delirious Mickey Spillane adaptation Kiss Me Deadly, directed with apropo fever dream delirium by Robert Aldrich. Aldrich subsequently directed Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, the more sedate of the two movies.
The composer who carried film noir music into the 1960's and extended it into the world of television was the great Henry Mancini. We love us some Mancini here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!
Closing today's post is this blog's all-time favorite album of re-imagined, lovingly deconstructed and re-constructed movie music, Oranj Symphonette Plays Mancini.
Listening to this outstanding record reminds the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog how much we miss multi-instrumentalist, Oranj Mancinis leader, friend and avid classic movies/animation buff Ralph Carney (1956-2017). Also reminds us how much we loathe, detest and have difficulty accepting these losses. . .
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