Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[Rory]

OMG! Film noir or film noirs? How about "whatever"? Let's move on because this is becoming an example of the noir nature of these forums.

It's also another example of a thread devolving into "master debating." People want to win the aguement by getting what can't be got -- the last word -- and so it soon becomes pointless "master debating" until a moderator comes in to clean up the mess.

[lilboyblu]

Speaking of neo-noir, I’m kind of surprised that U Turn is still available. Being on the low quantity list, I thought it’d be one of the first to go.

[Rory]

OK!!!! So....

I just did a count. When my latest order of TT Blu-rays arrives, before Thanksgiving I hope, it'll bring my total TT BD collection to a grand total of fifty-six! I can't believe I've ordered that many over the years, and most at their full price -- plus shipping. Yikes!

I ordered JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH twice, and I pretty much wish I'd never bothered ordering it in the first edition. At the time, Nick Redman said that the HD master for the transfer, which was from an interpositive created from B&W separation masters because the OCN was too badly faded to work with, was the best we could possibly hope for from Fox on that title. I suspected this wasn't true, and sure enough, we get a 4K remaster from the OCNs less than three years later thanks to the modern miracles of digital restoration. Now, I can't be too upset because JOURNEY is one of my favorite movies and I'm so grateful for its restoration, but I still have to wonder if Nick Redman knew what was going on all the time?

Anyway, it's all moot now because I've bought JOURNEY yet again on Blu-ray from Eureka! in the UK and this time mostly because I liked the packaging! Luckily, DVDBeaver, at least, says the Eureka! BD of JOURNEY has a higher bitrate and gives it "the edge in image quality with slightly warmer flesh tones and overall richer colors." I haven't watched it yet, so I'll see.

And speaking of another Eureka! title on Blu-ray. I don't believe TT has ever licensed a title from Universal. I wish they could in the case of the Eureka! Blu-ray I watched this morning, THE WAR LORD with Charlton Heston. Universal has done a fine HD transfer of it, and the UK BD has an isolated music and effects track, the original theatrical trailer and a nice booklet. If you like the movie and have an all-region player, I highly recommend it. The one thing it doesn't have that I wish it did is a commentary track.

I do appreciate that TT does for the most part commentary tracks on its releases. Whenever they don't, I feel gypped in a way, although some commentary tracks are definitely better than others. As much as I appreciate that they got Diane Baker for JOURNEY's commentary, she didn't really have much to say about the film itself. I'd have preferred listening to more of what film historian Steven C. Smith had to say, or if they could have gotten Jon Burlingame in to discuss the score.

What's everyone's opinion here of the commentary tracks on TT releases?

For the most part, I appreciate them, whether they're new or carried over from previous releases, but I'm reminded of one where Nick Redman really annoyed me. It was during the commentary he, Julie Kirgo and Jeff Bond did for THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT. Nick Redman thought that Peter Sellers was miscast in the film, which is fair (even though the back cover of his own company's Blu-ray says Sellers plays his part with "magnificent aplomb"), but Redman then went into a rant on how little, in general, he thought of Sellers that I thought was a little unnecessary, especially since I like most Sellers movies despite what I might know about what he was like personally.

I do wish that the commentaries TT does itself were a little less off the top of their heads discussions. There are too many incidents where someone is about to make a point about something but is cut off by someone else before they can make it and then never return to finish the thought.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Rory

The beautiful use of CinemaScope and the pictorial nature of the Japanese location make it hard for me to consider House of Bamboo film noir. The script is the problem. It's too much like an old-style '30s gangster movie.

Well, if it helps, Robert Stack is the film's femme fatale, luring Robert Ryan to his doom - something Ryan and Fuller were very conscious of but never mentioned to Stack... And it is a loose remake of The Street with No Name.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Well, if it helps, Robert Stack is the film's femme fatale, luring Robert Ryan to his doom - something Ryan and Fuller were very conscious of but never mentioned to Stack... And it is a loose remake of The Street with No Name.

Homme fatale?

[Rory]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Well, if it helps, Robert Stack is the film's femme fatale, luring Robert Ryan to his doom - something Ryan and Fuller were very conscious of but never mentioned to Stack... And it is a loose remake of The Street with No Name.

OK, well then, I guess, that makes it loosely a film noir -- if that makes one happy? I'm really not that into categorizing films anyway.

By the way, I have the old Fox DVD of HOUSE OF BAMBOO, but it's not a TT Blu-ray that I own. I haven't watched it in over a decade. I think it's a fair movie, but not a very good one. Here's something I just read on Wiki about it:

The staff of Variety magazine wrote of the film, "Novelty of scene and a warm, believable performance by Japanese star Shirley Yamaguchi are two of the better values in the production. Had story treatment and direction been on the same level of excellence, House would have been an all round good show. Pictorially, the film is beautiful to see; the talk's mostly in the terse, tough idiom of yesteryear mob pix."

Film critic Keith Uhlich believes the film is an excellent example of wide-screen photography. He wrote in a review, "Quite simply, House of Bamboo has some of the most stunning examples of widescreen photography in the history of cinema. Traveling to Japan on 20th Century Fox's dime, Fuller captured a country divided, trapped between past traditions and progressive attitudes while lingering in the devastating aftereffects of an all-too-recent World War. His visual schema represents the societal fractures through a series of deep-focus, Non-theatrical tableaus, a succession of silhouettes, screens, and stylized color photography that melds the heady insanity of a Douglas Sirk melodrama (see, as an especial point of comparison, Sirk's 1956 Korea-set war film Battle Hymn) with the philosophical inquiry of the best noirs."

[oildude]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

Homme fatale?

Homie fatale!

I Don't Think So, Homie Don't Play Dat - YouTube

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

Homme fatale?

Careful, we don't want to start another Franglais semantics smackdown...

[Rory]

Sure you guys aren't referring to Robert Wagner in STOPOVER TOKYO?

[antennahead]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Careful, we don't want to start another Franglais semantics smackdown...

Originally Posted by Rory

Sure you guys aren't referring to Robert Wagner in STOPOVER TOKYO?

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Careful, we don't want to start another Franglais semantics smackdown...

Je m’excuse

[Widescreenfilmguy]

There were a few color CinemaScope films I’d classify as noir in addition to Bamboo, The Tattered Dress is one and Violent Saturday is another. Possibly A Kiss Before Dying as well

[Rory]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

There were a few color CinemaScope films I’d classify as noir in addition to Bamboo, The Tattered Dress is one and Violent Saturday is another. Possibly A Kiss Before Dying as well

The problem I have with this is where does it end? I can see considering 1967's POINT BLANK film noir, or 1976's TAXI DRIVER. There are several more examples since the early fifties, but generally, I think if you start to include too much it dilutes what the entire genre is supposed to be like and say.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

There were a few color CinemaScope films I’d classify as noir in addition to Bamboo, The Tattered Dress is one and Violent Saturday is another. Possibly A Kiss Before Dying as well

The Tattered Dress was shot in black and white.

[Rory]

The Third Man. Could you call that an example of European film noir?

[thatguamguy]

Hold on, if a bunch of people want to use this thread to debate the finer qualifiers for film noir, that's fine, but I was enjoying the Chris Nolan conversation and would like to keep that one going too.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Rory

The problem I have with this is where does it end? I can see considering 1967's POINT BLANK film noir, or 1976's TAXI DRIVER. There are several more examples since the early fifties, but generally, I think if you start to include too much it dilutes what the entire genre is supposed to be like and say.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

Film noir was never a "genre" in the first place, it was a style that evolved into one.

Not trying to be smarmy or pedantic but that's why there's so much grey area when it comes to classifying a film as "noir"; the "rules", such as they are, are incredibly lax and undefined vs. other types of films.

[tallrichard]

I think of color noir films as neo-noir.

Without B&W, I don't think noir has the same impact....

I think of Point Blank as a great neo-noir film!

I personally don't think of Taxi Driver as noir....

[nitin]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

Hold on, if a bunch of people want to use this thread to debate the finer qualifiers for film noir, that's fine, but I was enjoying the Chris Nolan conversation and would like to keep that one going too.

Memento is a damn good Neo noir

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by tallrichard

I think of color noir films as neo-noir.

Without B&W, I don't think noir has the same impact....

I think of Point Blank as a great neo-noir film!

I personally don't think of Taxi Driver as noir....

Where it gets sticky is that some of the French critics who popularized the term in the 50s included a few color films like Slightly Scarlet and House of Bamboo in discussions about noir: if it was by James M. Cain or a favourite director that seemed to get a pass from some and start a fishfight (*) with others.

For some the dividing line is the decade rather than whether its color of black and white. Anything from the 60s onwards - and especially the 70s - is neo-noir.

* French critics' favoured style of debating the definition of film noir: