Kino’s 19th ‘Dark Side of Cinema’ mega-series — now 57 individual films and counting — presents three more solid noir entertainments from good directors and top stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Lizabeth Scott, and Charlton Heston in his first Hollywood feature. The lineup:  Dark City,  No Man of Her Own and  Beware, My Lovely.  The various sins and schemes featured include illicit gambling, extortion, identity theft, and just plain psychotic menace. Kino covers the pack with a roundup of top noir commentators: Alan K. Rode, Imogen Sara Smith, Jason A. Ney, Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XIX
Dark City, No Man of Her Own, Beware, My Lovely
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 273 min. / Street Date June 18, 2024 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Charlton Heston, Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Lizabeth Scott, Viveca Lindfors, Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, Dean Jagger, Ed Begley, Don DeFore, Mike Mazurki, John Lund, Lyle Bettger, Phyllis Thaxter, William Talman.
Directed by William Dieterle, Mitchell Leisen, Harry Horner

Collection number 19 in Kino’s Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema series lands us right on the 1950-ish turning point when even stylized studio productions were spending considerable time on real locations. Charlton Heston makes his debut as an amoral gambler in the set’s first offering, but the 2nd and third films proffer female protagonists. Barbara Stanwyck is trapped in one of those irony-laden puzzles favored by hardboiled noir scribe Cornell Woolrich, while Ida Lupino goes ‘domestic noir’ with a small-scale production for her company The Filmakers, filmed in an ordinary Los Angeles neighborhood.

Dark City
1950 / 98 min.
Starring: Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Viveca Lindfors, Dean Jagger, Don DeFore, Jack Webb, Ed Begley, Harry (Henry) Morgan, Walter Sande, Mark Keuning, Mike Mazurki.
Cinematography: Victor Milner
Art Director: Hans Dreier, Franz Bachelin
Editorial Supervisor: Warren Low
Music: Franz Waxman
Screenplay by John Meredyth Lucas, Larry Marcus adaptation by Ketti Frings story by Larry Marcus
Produced by Hal B. Wallis
Directed by William Dieterle

Charlton Heston hailed from the Midwest and had the broadest shoulders in town. He began his Hollywood film career at the top, starring in a leading role in Dark City. Producer Hal Wallis envisioned that this murky crime story would do for him what Mark Hellinger’s  The Killers had done for Burt Lancaster. Wallis even produced a short subject to promote his new find.

Gambler Danny Haley (Charlton Heston) and some crooked associates (Jack Webb & Ed Begley) are tangled in illicit doings. They fleece Arthur Winant (Don DeFore) in a crooked card game, and are shocked when he commits suicide. The gamblers’ arguments over their shady earnings become a lesser issue when Winant’s violent brother Sidney (Mike Mazurki) proceeds with a campaign of murderous revenge. Nobody knows what this Sidney looks like.

To do an End Run around the man who wants to kill him, Danny goes to Los Angeles. Pretending to be an insurance investigator, he gets close to Arthur Winant’s widow Victoria (Viveca Lindfors). But not even Victoria has a photo of her dangerous brother-in-law. When his deception is unmasked Danny relocates to Las Vegas and avails himself of aid from ‘Soldier’ (Harry Morgan), an old buddy who wanted no part of the swindle back East. Singer Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) follows, too much in love to stay away from bad-news Danny.

Has all the joy gone out of illicit criminal scheming?  Dark City is unusually bleak and humorless. Its ex- G.I. losers ‘n’ users drift through dark night streets as if looking for an exit to a better life. Only the slow-witted Soldier objects to taking the guileless Arthur Winant to the cleaners. Charlton Heston’s Danny Haley is essentially an amoral jerk. He cheats Arthur Winant with the same non-committal attitude by which he strings along the shamelessly devoted Fran. Danny also sees nothing wrong with dating the emotionally distressed Victoria Winant and attaching himself to her small son. Danny shows little sense of duty to the law, here represented by the rather anemic police Captain Garvey (Dean Jagger).

Danny rationalizes his actions as necessary chess moves in the effort to evade the law. He’s genuinely afraid of being strangled by the frighteningly efficient Sidney Winant. With the focus of wrongdoing shifted to the maniacal Sidney Winant, Danny Haley never has to face up to his personal culpability. He instead softens his outlook and accepts Fran as a real partner in a new honest life. Charlton Heston’s personal debut is a standout, but Dark City is a not a strong star vehicle.

Cinematographer Victor Milner provides the noir mood lighting and Franz Waxman’s dynamic score keeps the action moving. Director William Dieterle elicits a moving performance from Don DeFore, and viewers will appreciate the contributions of Jack Webb (caustic & selfish), Ed Begley (nervous, ailing) and Harry Morgan (feeble but loyal). Making a memorable appearance in an action scene is the immediately recognizable Mike Mazurki, a noir fixture from as far back as  Murder, My Sweet. Likely hired as a Warners’ answer to Ingrid Bergman, Viveca Lindfors feels miscast as a widowed war bride housewife. Her brief Hollywood career was almost entirely a misfire, with roles unsuited to her talent and disposition.

Hal Wallis’ earlier discovery Lizabeth Scott sings five full songs, at least two too many. No matter how poorly her long-suffering Fran Garland is treated, she repeatedly throws herself at Danny, following him across country like a faithful puppy.

No other Hollywood actor has had a career even remotely resembling Charlton Heston’s. He received an assured launch, and genuine stardom arrived when Cecil B. DeMille handed him the lead in his overblown circus epic  The Greatest Show on Earth. From then on he made his biggest impressions as heroes from history or The Bible.

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Noir expert Alan K. Rode’s lively audio commentary takes us deep into the noir sensibility — he really enjoys profiling the talent associated with the style. Harry Morgan said he could have played the Colonel on M*A*S*H forever, Don Defore helped get Ronald Reagan into political office, and Jack Webb was on the cusp of starting his career as a TV producer. We also get inside stories about Hal Wallis and Lizabeth Scott. Alan says that Dark City is directly responsible for Charlton Heston’s getting a lead role in De Mille’s circus spectacular: the director didn’t like the movie but recognized Heston potential for bigger-than-life roles.

No Man of Her Own
1950 / 98 min.
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Phyllis Thaxter, Lyle Bettger, Henry O’Neill, Richard Denning, Carole Mathews
Cinematographer: Daniel Fapp
Art direction: Hans Dreier, Henry Bumstead
Costumes: Edith Head
Film Editor: Alma Macrorie
Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Written by Sally Benson, Catherine Tunney from a story by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)
Produced by Richard Maibaum
Directed by Mitchell Leisen

No Man Of Her Own is yet another fine picture from director Mitchell Leisen. He and producer Richard Maibaum do wonders with a twisted murder thriller about an unwed mother. Putting a newborn baby in the middle of such sordid goings-on could be an exercise in tastelessness; Leisen and Stanwyck neatly sidestep those concerns.

The tale hinges on a wild coincidence concocted by source author Cornell Woolrich. Pregnant Helen Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is abandoned by her no-good lover Steve Morley (Lyle Bettger), a cheap crook who has already taken up with a new woman, Irma (Carole Mathews). On a train, Helen meets a young married couple, Patrice and Hugh Harkness (Phyllis Thaxter & Richard Denning). Patrice is pregnant too, and Hugh is taking her home to meet his wealthy family. A horrible accident occurs, and Helen is one of the few survivors. When she wakes she discovers that everybody including the Harkness family assume that she is Patrice.

Helen nearly bolts for the exit, but relents and allows the family to accept her: the mixup means that her baby will have a good life. The passive deception seems heaven-sent when Hugh’s brother Bill Harkness (John Lund) takes a romantic interest in Helen. But everything is threatened when Steve Morley reappears with more evil plans. Ridding the world of Morley really sounds like the best solution for everybody.

No Man keeps a lot of unlikely events cooking in the present tense, not allowing us to think too far ahead. The writing and acting are so good, we buy events that are near-preposterous. Helen Ferguson is on a train to nowhere when a classic Woolrich triple-twist comes into play; from that point forward the show walks a ‘credibility tightrope.’  What does Helen / Patrice do when the time comes to apply for a drivers’ license?

Dramas about unwed motherhood mostly vanished with Production Code enforcement in 1934; convincing the Code office to approve the show likely required a full-court press from Paramount’s front office. Hiding within the tale is a parable about wealth and worth in society. Because she’s indigent and unmarried, all Helen can expect is stern disapproval and the loss of her baby to the social authorities. One swap of wedding rings and she’s a pampered new member of a prosperous family. Helen answers kindness with kindness and is emotionally reborn. But we know that Morley won’t stay away for long, if only because actor Lyle Bettger played so many unregenerate rats.

When Helen’s car refuses to start at the scene of a murder, Leisen seems to be referencing Billy Wilder’s  Double Indemnity. Helen’s many goofs when pretending to be Patrice — like using her original name — are dismissed as the effects of her accident. We come away with a greater appreciation of Barbara Stanwyck’s talent. Many lesser noirs stumble because the actors can’t put across the absurd plot contrivances. Stanwyck can make the most unlikely situation believable; she gathers audience interest and sympathy like a sponge.

No Man of Her Own’s characters are also never made to behave like idiots. John Lund’s Bill Harkness remains loyal to Helen, even when he discovers her secret. The upbeat finale doesn’t alter the film’s noir standing, even if it veers away from core principles. The wind-up also seems to have confused the Production Code, as it doesn’t quite follow the ‘pay for your sins’ rule. But there is a kind of class-conscious retribution.

The talented John Lund didn’t get the right breaks, despite having a voice like Clark Gable and landing occasional good movies like the now-appreciated classic  A Foreign Affair. As the original Patrice, former MGM contractee Phyllis Thaxter makes a strong impression with just a couple of minutes of screen time. This appears to be Lyle Bettger’s first film appearance, in a long line of slimy bad guys. Steve Morley forces Helen to marry him in the middle of the night. One dialogue exchange seems a dodge to satisfy the Code Office regarding respect for the institution of marriage. Misinterpreting her request not to return to the Harkness house, he has the nerve to tell her to forget about sleeping with him, as he’s only in it for the money!

Look fast and you’ll see the beloved Kathleen Freeman as a country club guest and the little-known  Kasey Rogers at the baby’s christening.

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No Man Of Her Own rates two audio commentaries. The track from noir expert Imogen Sarah Smith begins by defining the movie as ‘a small town, domestic noir.’  Ms. Smith can has a special talent for discussing noir essentials without spinning off into academic tangents. She goes deep into the picture on several levels, with interesting coverage of the actors and a good run-down on the waning career years of director Mitchell Leisen.

A second commentary is a lighter piece, a conversation between the highly qualified Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff. Theirs is a friendly coffee-table discussion — in addition to contributing information, Handkoff will sometimes ask questions about something on screen.

Beware, My Lovely
1952 / 77 min.
Starring: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Taylor Holmes, Barbara Whiting, James Willmas, O.Z. Whitehead, William Talman.
Cinematography: George E. Diskant
Film Editor: Paul Weatherwax
Original Music: Leith Stevens
Screenplay by Mel Dinelli from his story and his play
Produced by Collier Young
Directed by Harry Horner

The glamorous star Ida Lupino had a very interesting business relationship with Howard Hughes, the wholly eccentric chief of RKO. Hughes frustrated his production executives with impractical, counter-intuitive and fiscally disastrous decisions, often stalling finished movies for meaningless tweaking, or for no reason at all. Ms. Lupino enticed Hughes into releasing some of the highly sensitive dramas from her company ‘The Filmakers’; she also starred in some shows for RKO, like the excellent   On Dangerous Ground . Dealing with Hughes surely took years off her life, but she achieved her goal of transitioning from actress to producer and director.

One Filmakers picture given an RKO release is Beware, My Lovely, a suspense piece mounted on a scale not much bigger than an episode of TV’s later Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Director Harry Horner took advantage of some of the standing sets available on the RKO lot, where Howard Hughes had already laid off half the studio personnel. The Filmakers welcomed writer Mel Dinelli into their creative group — his previous noir hits  The Spiral Staircase and  The Window had led him to write the Broadway play on which Beware, My Lovely is based, “The Man.”

It’s 1918. War widow Helen Gordon (Ida Lupino) makes ends meet by renting rooms in her old-fashioned house. She engages drifter Howard Wilton (Robert Ryan) to do some major maintenance. But Howard is a very disturbed individual, outgoing and friendly one moment and dangerously paranoid the next. He soon begins imagining that Helen doesn’t like him, and builds up an irrational resentment. Never one to think the worst of people, the vulnerable Helen soon finds herself trapped with a dangerous, violent man with a hair-trigger.

We know what Helen doesn’t: Howard has killed his previous employer. Yet he’s a sympathetic menace, as shown when he tries to explain to Helen that he can’t remember what he does when he ‘blacks out’ — he fears that he has hurt people. Helen doesn’t take the threat seriously until she finds herself a prisoner in her own house.

Beware, My Lovely is one of several RKO releases released in 1952 but actually finished years earlier, like William Cameron Menzies’  The Whip Hand, Richard Fleischer’s  The Narrow Margin and Nicholas Ray’s  On Dangerous Ground, also starring Ryan and Lupino. The delay did no favors for Horner, either. It was the former production designer’s first feature as director, but his second-directed show was released first, the strange political science fiction film  Red Planet Mars. Horner pulls off two or three accomplished expressionist shots, like an image of multiple Howard Wiltons menacing Helen in reflections in Christmas tree ornaments.

The target audience for Beware, My Lovely had to be the crowd that would respond to its sexed-up original poster art. Was it generated by the same Howard Hughes publicists tasked with turning out lurid ad images of Jane Russell and Faith Domergue?  The movie is a period piece set in 1918, which makes Ida Lupino’s Spillane-like pose and revealing neckline seem a bait-and-switch dodge. The film’s working titles were The Ragged Edge, day without End and One False Move, all of which would be appropriate for a thriller that’s also a sensitive psychological drama. The final title sounds like a Mickey Spillane parody.

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Kino’s fine selection of audio commentaries finishes off with Jason A. Ney’s track for the Harry Horner movie. Repeated from an earlier edition, its depth of research would be hard to better. Ney has special info about everything, from the film’s canine actor to the reuse of the famed set from The Magnificent Ambersons, to the inside story on the rocky relationship between ‘The Filmakers’ and Howard Hughes.

Hughes’ RKO helped give Ida Lupino a launching pad for her directing career. For many years she was the only woman director in Hollywood. We’re told that Lupino’s ‘Filmakers’ partner Collier Young signed an initial contract with Howard Hughes that all but gave away the farm — RKO took 50% of the profits and Young and Lupino had to pay for all the film’s advertising. Jason Ney’s commentary has many equally interesting stories to tell — it’s a very good listen.

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XIX looks and sounds like prime goods. Kino’s copy proudly claims that all three titles are new HD remasters by Paramount, all from 4K scans. The disc encodings better those of earlier releases from Olive Films and [Imprint]. Dark City is cleaner, brighter, and sharper. No Man of Her Own is the most improved, as some scenes on the older disc almost looked washed out. I didn’t see as much improvement in Beware, My Lovely. The difference isn’t as dramatic as that between a DVD and Blu-ray; there wasn’t really anything wrong with the earlier discs. If you were to test me, I’d judge by the title sequences, which definitely look cleaner in the first two pictures.

Each title comes with an original trailer, and some select ‘related’ trailers. Kino’s Dark Side of Cinema series began in 2020 with core titles from Universal, and soon expanded into noir-adjacent territory. They’ve lately picked up fine titles from MGM – United Artists and Paramount. We have also sometimes reviewed just one title from a collection, as with  The Night Runner, a noir proto-horror picture included in the Dark Side XIII box.

Collectors do write to say that they sometimes purchase discs because I praise an audio commentary, and the ones on this set are highly recommended.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XIX
Blu-ray rates:
Movies: Dark City & Beware, My Lovely Very Good++, No Man of Her Own Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
All New audio commentaries:
Alan K. Rode on Dark City
Imogen Sara Smith on No Man of Her Own
Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff on No Man of Her Own
Jason A. Ney on Beware, My Lovely
Theatrical Trailers.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: July 7, 2024
(7160noir)

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