Classic Films in Focus: BORN TO KILL (1947)

The illustrious Robert Wise directs Born to Kill (1947), a sharp, smart noir drama that showcases the considerable talents of Claire Trevor as its morally ambivalent protagonist. It's an early foray into the genre for Wise, who would go on to direct The Set-Up (1949) and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) before moving to Oscar winning projects like West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965). Unlike those more famous musicals, Born to Kill allows Wise to explore some truly dark territory, and it provides interesting gender reversals of several noir tropes, with Trevor's character in the sway of Lawrence Tierney's menacing homme fatal. Memorable supporting performances from Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Esther Howard also make this taut crime story worth seeking out, with Isabel Jewell making a brief but pivotal appearance as the good-time girl whose bad behavior sets the plot in motion.

Claire Trevor stars as the newly divorced Helen, who concludes her stay in Reno by discovering a pair of corpses and then skipping town without informing the police. On the train back to San Francisco, she meets the attractive but overbearing Sam (Lawrence Tierney), who makes overtures to Helen but then rapidly marries her wealthy foster sister, Georgia (Audrey Long). Neither Helen's engagement to Fred (Phillip Terry) nor Sam's marriage can cool their lust for each other, even though Helen begins to suspect that Sam is the murderer who left those bodies behind. Meanwhile, a private detective (Walter Slezak) hired by a friend of the dead woman arrives in San Francisco to investigate Sam's involvement in the crime, and Helen is torn between betraying Sam and keeping his dangerous secrets.

Trevor's Helen takes the place of the usual noir anti-hero; like Walter Neff or Frank Chambers, she has a sliver of conscience to struggle against the dark impulses that dictate her fate. Ironically, of course, one of her few generous actions, that of returning a little dog to its home, leads her to find the bodies and make the far less laudable decision to leave town without telling the police. Helen doesn't want to get involved, but soon she's involved so deeply that she can't get out. She knows perfectly well what kind of man Sam is, but she can't resist him, even after he marries her innocent sister. Tierney's male seducer is more brutal than a classic femme fatale; he's always just a breath away from losing his temper and killing someone, although his friend, Marty (Elisha Cook, Jr.), tries to keep him under control. Noir fans will instantly see the irony of having Cook, so often cast as the unhinged type himself,  play the sane one of the pair, while Tierney is really terrifying in his role, and it's clear that he's the inspiration for the picture's title. Moreover, we understand that Helen is a fool to think she can manage him or even survive her entanglement in this compulsive killer's web.

Cook is probably the most familiar of the supporting players, thanks to his many noir roles, but Born to Kill offers several other performances worth noting. Walter Slezak, sounding just a little sketchy with his Austrian accent, plays the detective, Arnett, a slippery philosopher who might or might not have any morals at the bottom of his corpulent soul. Isabel Jewell vanishes too soon as Laury, the girl whose infidelity first pushes Sam over the edge, but she gives the character enough life to highlight Helen's cold self-interest and Mrs. Kraft's devotion. It's Esther Howard as the older woman who proves the scene-stealer of the picture; as the tragicomic Mrs. Kraft, she's brassy and worn, but probably the most deeply sympathetic character in the whole story. Her confrontation with Cook's murderous Marty turns up the tension to an almost unbearable degree, first by forcing us to watch her walk right into a trap and then by making her fight for her life with desperate courage. She's funny, crass, loyal, and utterly heartbreaking in her grief over Laury's untimely death, a perfect foil to Helen's pitiless refinement.

Be sure to note Tommy Noonan in an uncredited role as the bellboy who knows that Mrs. Kraft cheats at cards and Ellen Corby of The Waltons as one of the household maids. For more of Robert Wise's films from the 1940s, try The Curse of the Cat People (1944) and The Body Snatcher (1945), both made under the oversight of horror maestro Val Lewton. Claire Trevor won a much-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Key Largo (1948), but you'll also find her in Stagecoach (1939), Murder, My Sweet (1944), and Raw Deal (1948). Lawrence Tierney plays bad guys like the title outlaw in Dillinger (1945) and Jesse James in Badman's Territory (1946) and Best of the Badmen (1951). Don't miss Walter Slezak in the Hitchcock thriller, Lifeboat (1944), in which he puts that accent to especially unnerving use. Esther Howard turns up regularly in Preston Sturges comedies, as well as Murder, My Sweet and Champion (1949). You might recognize Isabel Jewell from her role as Emmy Slattery in Gone with the Wind (1939), but she also appears in Marked Woman (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), and The Leopard Man (1943).

Classic Films in Focus: MURDER, MY SWEET (1944)

Several actors have played Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, in memorable films: Humphrey Bogart took on the role in The Big Sleep (1946), Robert Montgomery tried it in Lady in the Lake (1947), and Elliott Gould offered a neo-noir version in The Long Goodbye (1973). George Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, and James Garner have all donned Marlowe’s mantle, as well, but the most surprising actor to appear as the noir icon might be former crooner Dick Powell, who stars as the first big screen Marlowe in Edward Dmytryk’s highly regarded Murder, My Sweet (1944). Joining Powell for this wild, dark ride are Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley as members of a murderously dysfunctional family who pull the detective into a series of deadly encounters. With its fatal females, sardonic voiceover, and tangled passions, Murder, My Sweet has all the hallmarks we associate with classic noir style, although it also offers surreal thrills thanks to Marlowe’s psychotropic adventures.

Powell’s Marlowe is first drawn into his latest case by newly paroled muscle man, Moose (Mike Mazurki), who wants the detective to track down an old flame. Before he can do much with that job, Marlowe finds himself drawn into another mystery when he plays bodyguard to a man who ends up being killed on Marlowe’s watch. The murderer’s trail leads Marlowe to the wealthy Grayle family, where trophy wife Helen (Claire Trevor) is trying to recover a stolen jade necklace given to her by her elderly husband (Miles Mander). Helen’s stepdaughter Ann (Anne Shirley) dislikes Marlowe but wants to protect her father from whatever trouble Helen has caused. Marlowe, however, isn’t sure whether he can trust any of the Grayles, especially since his two cases seem to be strangely entwined.

The story is told in flashback, and in the opening we meet Powell sitting in a police interrogation room with bandaged eyes and a crowd of unfriendly cops, so we know Marlowe’s adventure isn’t going to be any walk in the park. In fact, Marlowe really takes a beating; he gets hit over the head, strangled, drugged, shot at, locked up, and hounded by the police throughout the picture. Murder, My Sweet ventures into really bizarre territory when Marlowe is shot full of mind-altering drugs and experiences hallucinations worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, but the segment works with the unlucky detective’s repeated trips to the “black pool” of unconsciousness. For a guy who’s supposed to be thinking fast, Marlowe spends a lot of time in the dark, an irony not lost on the picture’s attitude toward its dazed protagonist and convoluted plot.

Powell originally gained fame as a musical star in Busby Berkeley productions like 42nd Street (1933), but he plays cat and mouse with Claire Trevor just as well as he had sung to Ruby Keeler. He has a perfect voice for Marlowe's narration and throws his wry lines around with a jaded, casual cool. Powell’s cast mates give him plenty to work with, especially Claire Trevor as the sexy, secretive wife and Mike Mazurki as the tough mug with a one-track mind. Otto Kruger is ominously urbane as Jules Amthor, a crooked psychiatrist who abuses his relationship with his clients in a lucrative, if grossly unethical, manner, although Mazurki is so interesting as both a physical presence and a character that his henchman really overshadows the more intellectual boss.

Murder, My Sweet is required viewing for classic noir fans; try a double bill with one of the other Marlowe pictures for different takes on Chandler's streetwise detective. Catch the lighter side of Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and Dames (1934). Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Key Largo (1948); she also has memorable roles in Dead End (1937), Stagecoach (1939), and Raw Deal (1948). Anne Shirley earned her own Best Supporting Actress nomination for Stella Dallas (1937), which put her in direct competition with Trevor that year, although both lost to Alice Brady for In Old Chicago (1937). Look for Mike Mazurki's distinctive face in many films from the 1940s and 50s, including The Canterville Ghost (1944), Nightmare Alley (1947), and Some Like It Hot (1959). Edward Dmytryk also directed Back to Bataan (1945), The Caine Mutiny (1954), and Raintree County (1957).

Classic Films in Focus: KEY LARGO (1948)

One expects certain things from Bogart and Bacall: screen melting chemistry, sassy lines, the heady mix of cigarettes and sex appeal. We get these things in spades in pictures like To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946), but Key Largo (1948) lacks that scintillating sizzle between its two stars, making the picture something of a disappointment for devoted fans of classic Hollywood's most iconic couple. Still, Key Largo has its charms, particularly for those who appreciate Edward G. Robinson, and the film makes an interesting counterpoint to The Petrified Forest (1936), which had made Humphrey Bogart a star.

When Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) arrives in Key Largo, there's a storm brewing both within and without the hotel he has come to visit. McCloud wants to fulfill a wartime obligation to a dead comrade, but in searching out the soldier's father (Lionel Barrymore) and widow (Lauren Bacall) he finds them facing more trouble than mere grief. It turns out that a group of gangsters has taken up residence in the hotel; their leader is the notorious Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), a former big man who plans to be big again, even if he has to leave Key Largo littered with bodies to do it. The arrival of a hurricane only makes matters worse, with the tension building as the gangsters and their hostages ride out the storm.

Bogart and Bacall are both restrained in this film; they don't deliver the tart one-liners and smoldering glances that mark their performances in their other pairings. Partly this is due to their characters: Bogart's McCloud is a man with too much honor to make eyes at his dead friend's wife, and Bacall is too good a wife to forget her fallen hero so easily. A steamy love affair would be unpatriotic at best, given the two characters' situations. As a result, their relationship on the screen plays out more like a cordial friendship than a romance. Director John Huston must have felt that the story required this approach, but still it leaves the viewer somewhat unsatisfied, given the mythic power of the stars' celebrated onscreen chemistry.

The heat and the excitement come from the other couple in Key Largo, Johnny Rocco and his faded flame, Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor). They make a nasty, pathetic pair; Rocco is clearly a sadist, and Gaye is just desperate enough to put up with everything that Rocco dishes out. In one particularly memorable scene, Rocco forces the alcoholic Gaye to sing for a drink and then denies her the coveted reward when he finds her performance lacking. Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role, and she really is the most interesting person in the entire movie, a fuller, more complicated character than either of the more upright protagonists or the utterly loathsome Rocco. The moral ambiguity that defines her character from the beginning of the film evolves into something much more certain by the climax, but she's the only really dynamic character that Key Largo has to offer, and that gives her the viewer's sympathy and attention in a way that neither Bogart nor Bacall can command.

You might appreciate Key Largo more if you start by watching The Petrified Forest, the 1936 picture that proved to be Bogart's breakout role. In the earlier film, Bogart plays the gangster to Leslie Howard's world weary wanderer, while Key Largo has Bogart now in the Howard role to Robinson's thug. There's a kind of full circle vibe at work between the two pictures, with a number of other parallels - like the enclosed spaces in which they occur - helping to put them in dialogue with one another in some interesting ways. In Maxwell Anderson's original stage version of Key Largo, the McCloud character died, but Huston's version bears very little resemblance to the unsuccessful play. Still, there's a sense of fate that hangs over the screen version of McCloud, and one could easily imagine a different ending to the film. Seeing the climax of The Petrified Forest helps to sharpen the viewer's understanding of how Key Largo might have played out instead.

Edward G. Robinson makes a great bad guy, a role he played often during his long career. Johnny Rocco is one of his better performances in the gangster vein; watch the way he whispers lasciviously into Lauren Bacall's ear. If you enjoy Robinson's work, be sure to catch Little Caesar (1931), Double Indemnity (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945). Claire Trevor earned additional Best Supporting Actress nominations for Dead End (1937) and The High and the Mighty (1954), but she also has memorable roles in Stagecoach (1939) and Murder, My Sweet (1944). Try Dark Passage (1947) for more of Bogart and Bacall, or see Bogart by himself in Dead Reckoning (1947) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). John Huston also directed several of Bogart's biggest films, but for contrast try The Asphalt Jungle (1950) or Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.