Kino keeps finding noir thrillers for its Dark Side series; classic-era stars decorate collection Number 23. Paul Henreid tortures Burt Lancaster for diamond secrets in Rope of Sand, witnessed by Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and sultry Corinne Calvet. Ruthless crook James Cagney woos Helena Carter and foolishly doublecrosses Barbara Payton in Horace McCoy’s Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. And John Drew Barrymore and Steve McQueen grow up on opposite sides of the law in Harold Robbins’ gangster meller Never Love a Stranger.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XXIII
Blu-ray
Rope of Sand, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Never Love a Stranger
KL Studio Classics
1949-1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen + 1:37 Academy
297 min. / Street Date February 11, 2025
Available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Burt Lancaster, James Cagney, Claude Rains, Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, John Drew Barrymore, Corinne Calvet, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, Lita Milan, Steve McQueen, Ward Bond, Sam Jaffe, Mike Mazurki, Luther Adler.
Directed by William Dieterle, Gordon Douglas, Robert Stevens

Kino’s neverending series  Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema is now on edition  XXIII yet has somehow managed to retain the ‘noir’ classification without cheating. Will the day come for ‘Film Noir 205: The Shirley Temple Years?’

As always each boxed set’s three individual keep cases contain a noir or noir-adjacent thriller, so far all in Black and White. Kino is at present mining the holdings of Paramount / Viacom. Selection 23 includes a film produced under their own logo, plus two independent productions. They were orginally released by other studios, but came together as smaller studio libraries were bought up, such as the one formerly owned by Republic Studios.

Two of the films presented for Noir Set #23 were originally released on Blu-ray by Olive Films, in the early twenty-teens. The third is a new item to Blu that might attract crossover interest from a different fan base — it has an early feature appearance by Steve McQueen, just before his starring role in the breakout creature feature  The Blob.

Rope of Sand
1949 / 1:37 Academy / 104 min.
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Corinne Calvet, Sam Jaffe, John Bromfield, Mike Mazurki, Kenny Washington, Edmund Breon, Hayden Rorke, Val Avery, Joel Fluellen, Darby Jones, Nestor Paiva.
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Production Designer:
Art Directors: Hans Drier Franz Bachelin
Original Music: Franz Waxman
Screenplay by Walter Doniger additional dialogue John Paxton
Produced by Hal B. Wallis
Directed by William Dieterle

After his knockout starring debut in Mark Hellinger’s  The Killers, Burt Lancaster found himself in a string of noir thrillers, most often as a hangdog noir loser in a torn undershirt. He wanted to extend his screen image, but producer Hal Wallis instead brought the actor with him to Paramount, where new torn undershirts awaited. To finish his contract with Wallis, Lancaster submitted to 1949’s  Rope of Sand, a moody tale of ‘international intrigue’ set in the South African diamond trade. Three cast members are from the earlier wartime classic  Casablanca.

Rope of Sand brings a group of shifty fortune hunters to diamond country, probably today’s Namibia. Lost in a sandstorm, Lancaster’s adventurer/ diamond thief Mike Davis is arrested, beaten and tortured by police commandant Paul Vogel (Paul Henreid) of the corrupt Colonial Diamond Company. Vogel thinks that Mike can locate a treasure trove of stolen gems hidden somewhere in a no-man’s-land called the Rope of Sand. Scheming mine executive Arthur Martingale (Claude Rains) also wants the diamonds, and hires the French adventuress Suzanne Renaud (Corrine Calvet) to pry it from Mike’s lips. Also entering into the dangerous equation are the company’s Doctor Hunter (Sam Jaffe) and an unscrupulous opportunist, Toady (Peter Lorre). Mike has a secret plan to bribe his way past Vogel’s Afrika Corps- like security troops, but dare he put it into effect?

The gritty Rope of Sand has excellent direction by William Dieterle, but at least one too many slimy characters. Suzanne Reynaud at first blackmails Martingale by threatening to accuse him of rape, but instead agrees to seduce Mike for money. The promise of an amorous future with Mike straightens her out. Shoehorned into the proceedings is the superfluous Toady, who appears in just three brief scenes to dispense colorful observations and verbal riddles.

The intrigues never stop. Double-crosses become triple-crosses as if in a game of musical chairs. Confessions are forced at gunpoint. The isolated outpost setting is more than a little strange. It’s a hellhole in the desert, yet both Martingale and Vogel maintain luxurious private houses more suitable for Palm Springs.

As is common in American-set films noir, ostentatious high culture is sure evidence of perversity. At one point Vogel shows off a priceless porcelain. He obtained from a (presumably Jewish) Frenchman forced to flee during the Occupation. True to the tough-guy code, Mike Davis smashes the vase just to see the look on Vogel’s face. Mike enjoys acts of destruction almost as much as he ‘enjoys’ being hung by his feet and whipped.

Just how twisted was Burt Lancaster’s screen image?  The advertising for his early noirs tended to depict him in shirtless poses, especially his prison picture  Brute Force.  The beefcake appeal is obvious. Mike Davis’s stoic acceptance of numerous beatings and tortures verges into sado-masochistic territory.

Critics generally liked Lancaster’s performance, even if they saved the bulk of their praise for Paul Henried’s nasty villain. Lancaster’s personal assessment of the film was unprintable, but he was quoted at a time when he was itching to move on to more rewarding roles. He proceeded to establish himself as an action star, and to exploit his acrobatic skills.

Leading lady Corrine Calvet came to Hollywood two years earlier as a possible challenger to Rita Hayworth. Playing up the sex angle, Paramount publicists exploited a moment in which Calvet’s character violently rips her own dress in an attempt to compromise the Claude Rains character.

Rope of Sand’s one topical angle is the suggestion that ex-Nazi war criminals are alive and well. The cruel security setup gives the impression that South Africa is a haven for SS fugitives and French collaborators. We’re meant to be impressed by the moral murk of post-war injustice, but what we see is a group of unpleasant, untrustworthy schemers. All know perfectly well that nobody is telling the truth. Movies about crime and injustice in the South African diamond trade are not that plentiful. The most successful may be Cy Endfield’s brutal 1960s survival thriller  Sands of the Kalahari.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
1950 / 1:37 Academy / 102 min.
Starring: James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Ward Bond, Luther Adler, Barton MacLane, Steve Brodie, Rhys Williams, Herbert Heyes, John Litel, William Frawley, Robert Karnes, Kenneth Tobey, Neville Brand, King Donovan.
Cinematography: J. Peverell Marley
Production Designer: Wiard Ihnen
Costumes: Adele Parmenter
Film Editors: Walter Hannemann, Truman K. Wood
Original Music: Carmen Dragon
Screenplay by Harry Brown from Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by Horace McCoy
Produced by William Cagney
Directed by Gordon Douglas

In need of a star comeback and a good payday, in 1949 James Cagney returned to Warner Bros. and the gangster genre for the noir classic  White Heat. It became such a big hit that Cagney and his producer brother William independently produced their own gangster follow-up.  Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a smaller-scale tale of criminal corruption whose main blessing is a script from a hardboiled pulp original by Horace McCoy, the celebrated writer of  They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. Smart direction from Gordon Douglas, good acting, and a surfeit of sadistic violence are part of the package. Cagney’s vicious new screen characterization seeks to equal his shocking turn as Cody Jarrett. Shooting people point blank and smashing their heads in with blunt objects are commonplace occurrences.

Thief and thug Ralph Cotter (Cagney) enjoys a violent streak of good luck. He is sprung from jail as an ‘investment’ for several crooks led by auto shop owner Vic Mason (Rhys Williams). Fellow prisoner Carleton (Neville Brand) is wounded during the escape so Cotter shoots him through the head. As it turns out the sharpshooter providing cover for the getaway is Carleton’s own sister Holiday (Barbara Payton). Ignoring instructions, Cotter and his associate Jinx Raynor (Steve Brodie) pull off a local robbery. Detectives Weber and Reece (Ward Bond & Barton MacLane) catch up with them, but turn out to be crooked as well. They take the loot and order all three of them to leave town. Cotter instead records Weber and Reece’s self-incriminating voices, and takes his evidence to Cherokee Mandon (Luther Adler), a shady attorney.

With the cops in his pocket, Cotter and his tiny gang are free to rob the local syndicate’s moneymen. Holiday knows she’s doing wrong, but falls in love with Cotter anyway. Unfortunately, he has found another outlet for his amorous ambitions: the adventurous Margaret Dobson (Helena Carter), heir to a major fortune. They launch into a whirlwind affair. Her busy father Ezra (Herbert Heyes) catches them in bed together, only for Margaret to produce a marriage license. It looks like Ralph is set for life — he can even go straight if he wants. The only trouble is those two crooked cops, out for vengeance. And how is Ralph going to explain Margaret to the still-faithful Holiday?

Smart, fast and cynical, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye can’t have pleased the Production Code office. Its view of criminality assumes that the city officials and cops in any given burg are in league with organized crime. Cagney’s Ralph Cotter loves risk and is convinced that he can control anyone. He bluffs, cajoles and threatens his way in and out of trouble. And he takes full advantage of Holiday’s unquestioning loyalty.

The hard-edged dialogue may have been a carry-over from author Horace McCoy, who himself had been writing screenplays since the early 1930s. As might be expected, James Cagney makes Cotter the master of a full range of devious tricks. He plays the sniveling coward with the cops just long enough to let them fall into his trap. He’s sincere with Holiday and enticingly cagey with Margaret. We’ll bet that in an earlier draft Holiday was more of a hick, and Margaret a reckless playgirl fantasy, hungry for a ‘dangerous’ man to dominate her.

Ralph is delighted to see his attorney Cherokee Mandon work the levers of a corrupt City Hall. With just a few slick moves, Ralph’s criminal past is purged from the police files. He’s even issued a license to carry a concealed weapon. Ralph decides that the rich Margaret Dobson is his kind of woman, when a cop pulls them over for speeding — and then apologizes to her for the inconvenience. Ralph proves that he’s a Crook For All Seasons when he plays the upstanding fellow for the benefit of Margaret’s father. Enjoying a swank lifestyle and Margaret’s exotic European sports car (not to mention Margaret herself) seems a lot better than dodging the law for the rest of his life. But can Ralph pull it off?

White Heat upped the ante for violence in Hollywood genre pictures: violent acts are no longer isolated, and the targets now include women. In Andrew Stone’s  Highway 301 a terrified beauty is cornered in a hotel corridor and shot in the stomach, without mercy. In Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye Ralph murders cops and crooks alike. He pistol-whips people so hard there’s every possibility of a fatal blow. His roughing up of Barbara Payton carries on the Cagney legacy of girl bashing that began twenty years earlier with Mae Clark in  The Public Enemy. Ralph commits atrocious acts, such as the (offscreen) execution of three rival mobsters, yet he’s the film’s only identification figure.

James Cagney has lost none of his tough guy edge. Everyone else gives fine support, with Helena Carter (the sexy nurse in  Invaders from Mars) always tuned to maximum seductiveness. Ironically, crooked detectives Ward Bond and Barton MacLane played dumb but honest cops with Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade ten years before in the classic  The Maltese Falcon.

The show is bookended with strident courtroom scenes expressing outrage at Ralph Cotter’s crime wave, but moral balance is never restored to Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. Even the ironic twist ending seems a bit wrong. Ralph Cotter is just too exciting for an exit like that — who wants a world populated with all those unimaginative leftover crooks?

This was the big break picture for actress Barbara Payton, who for a few seasons showed great promise. One of the sadder chapters in Hollywood Babylon lore, Ms. Payton seems to have been victimized by bad men, bad luck and terrible personal decisions.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye remains a handsomely filmed crime story. Cameraman J. Peverell Marley and designer Wiard Ihnen contrast Holiday’s crummy apartment and Margaret’s lush layout with its servants at the ready. Barbara Payton and Helena Carter are a study in contrast as well — both are appealing. The fascinating James Cagney is screen center in almost every scene.

Never Love a Stranger
1958 / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min.
Starring: John Drew Barrymore, Lita Milan, Robert Bray, Steve McQueen, Salem Ludwig, R.G. Armstrong, Douglas Rodgers, Felice Orlandi, Augusta Merighi, Vince Barbi, Abe Simon, Vitina Marcus, Richard Bright, Milo O’Shea.
Cinematography: Lee Garmes
Production Designer: Leo Kerz
Costumes: Ruth Morley
Film Editor: Sidney Katz
Original Music: Raymond Scott
Screenplay by Harold Robbins, Richard Day from the novel by Robbins
Produced by Richard Day, Harold Robbins
Directed by Robert Stephens

Never Love a Stranger would be a fine title for a soaper starring Lana Turner or Susan Hayward, but not this wholly predictable gangster story. The title does read like something for a supermarket rack. It’s a first stab at screenwriting and producing for best-selling author Harold Robbins, made from his first book published in 1948. Robbins was a longtime employee of Universal. He hired director Robert Stephens, who had over 40 Alfred Hitchcock TV shows on his résumé. Allied Artists signed to distribute. The weak link in the production was the casting. The leads John Drew Barrymore and Robert Bray had nothing but flops to their credit — although Stephens coaxes them to reasonably good performances.

Adorned with a philosophical narration, reportedly recorded by actor Milo ‘Shea, Never Love a Stranger tells the generic tale of the rise and fall of a hoodlum. In New York of the early 1920s, shoeshine boy Frankie Kane (John Drew Barrymore) lives in a Catholic orphanage. He becomes a favorite of mobster Silk Fennelli (Robert Bray) and comes to the aid of a bullied Jewish teenager, Martin Cabell (Steve McQueen). Frankie and Martin’s sister Julie (Lita Milan) are attracted to each other. But Frankie learns that he’s actually Jewish himself. Instead of relocating to a Jewish orphanage, he leaves town and tries to live on the road. Years later Frankie returns and reconnects with his old life. Martin Cabell is now an ambitious lawyer with the D.A.’s office. Julie is a now a cabaret singer and the girl of Silk Fennelli, who hires Frankie to be his chaffeur. Frankie proves adept at pulling his boss out of scrapes, but is also ambitious himself. He wants Julie back … and to take over Silk’s rackets.

If that’s not bland enough, Never Love a Stranger is bookended by a generic comeuppance scene for Frankie Kane, who we meet already bleeing profusely and escaping a shootout in a speeding car. Harold Robbins’ magic touch on the paperback racks doesn’t translate to this movie. Although decently directed and performed, it’s a series of stock dialogue scenes. Our only curiosity is wondering when something interesting will happen. The one novel twist is Frankie’s problem discovering that he’s a Jew. The issue is undeveloped … is Robbins trying to express some kind of self-loathing on Frankie’s part?

What surprises us most is that director Robert Stephens pulls very good scenes from his cast. Both John Drew Barrymore and Robert Bray were already tagged as acting also-rans. Barrymore couldn’t carry his leading role in Joseph Losey’s  The Big Night, and came off as an amateur in Fritz Lang’s  While the City Sleeps. As Frankie Kane, he’s on task at all times, and even becomes an acceptable tough guy. When Frankie takes over the rackets, he reminds us a bit of Sean Penn. Robert Bray was a complete washout as Mike Hammer in the woebegotten Spillane picture  My Gun Is Quick. We have to assume that focused direction by Stephens gave Bray all he needed, for his portrait of a mid-level gangster boss is better than good.

Since most reviews said that Steve McQueen’s role is small, we were surprised to discover that he has a fairly busy part, and figures in most of the key scenes. We smile when McQueen’s Marty Cabell tries to act meek, soliciting boxing lessons from Frankie. As a junior D.A. McQueen fares better. The direction leaves little room for McQueen to flex his personality, but we do see one instance of his noted scene-stealing. In a press conference Marty is one of a dozen attorneys listening as the D.A. makes a speech. Everybody else stays stock still, so as to make no noise and ruin the audio recording. Over on the left, McQueen is checking papers and making faces … our eye goes right to him.

Lita Milan ( The Left Handed Gun) is okay as Frankie’s long-time love interest, but the script just rushes her from one situation to the next: innocent neighborhood girl (who nevertheless all but comes on to Frankie); hoodum’s trophy girlfriend, etc.. When singing in Fenelli’s club, (voice by Dorothy Collins) she doesn’t even rate a close-up.

Turned out on a next-to-nothing Allied Artists-like budget, Never Love a Stranger has good direction and blocking but looks cheap around the edges. The 1920s scenes use various stock footage shots, some of which don’t match at all. A street scene will have a vintage car in the foreground, but a more modern truck in the middle distance. Okay rear projection is used for driving scenes, but Stevens stages as much of the movie he can on location.

We really don’t know what Robbins could have been thinking, dragging out the tired storyline about neighborhood boys, one who becomes a hoodlum, and another the city’s main prosecutor. Crime fans may find extra compensation in the presence of supporting actors like R.G. Armstrong, Salem Ludwig, and Felice Orlandi. Richard Bright, Walter Burke and Dort Clark show up, unbilled. In an opening scene Frankie Kane’s mother is played by Vitina Marcus, who showed up in several  Irwin Allen productions and was a featured ‘green’ alien on  Lost in Space. Her first films saw her billed as Dolores Vitina.

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XXIII were all remastered by Paramount in just the last 5 years; a close look at both Rope of Sand and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye shows a slightly improved and cleaner image than the older Olive Films encodings. Kiss bears the logo of its original distributor Warners, and has the brassy, punchy soundtrack associated with that studio.

Corrine Calvet’s mission was to heat up the screen, but comes off as a compromised femme fatale in a movie where stock role seems one step away from a Terry and the Pirates comic strip. Barbara Payton and Helena Carter in Kiss each work individual erotic charges that make our heads spin, if not Ralph Cotter’s. The no-frills cinematography of Never Love a Stranger leaves little opportunity to create a glamorous aura around the personable Lita Milan.

Kino manages trailers for two of the pictures and commissioned new commentaries for all three features. All are informative and entertaining. Alan K. Rode’s has the edge on in-depth research, and the interesting backstory for James Cagney’s return to the genre he spent a decade trying to stay away from. There’s also the sad tale of Barbara Payton, which Rode gives a sympathetic, non- Kenneth Anger telling.

Gary Gerani’s friendly track has plenty to relate about the he-bull talents Burt Lancaster and Hal Wallis, and the fairly saucy career of Corinne Calvet. Julie Kirgo and Peter Handkoff continue their successful conversational pairing on the orphaned non-classic Never Love a Stranger. It may be the only Harold Robbins project that didn’t turn to gold.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XXIII
Blu-ray rates:
Movies: Rope Good; Kiss Excellent; Never Good +/-.
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
New audio commentaries
For Rope of Sand by Gary Gerani
For Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by Alan K. Rode
For Never Love a Stranger by Julie Kirgo & Peter Hankoff
plus trailers for Rope and Kiss.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 5, 2025
(7275noir)

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page
Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: cinesavant@gmail.com

Text © Copyright 2025 Glenn Erickson