The United Kingdom’s All Night Long is a jazz-infused noir-ish retelling of Othello, Shakespeare’s tragedy of a Morish warrior manipulated into a lethal jealous frenzy by the trusted Iago.

Rod Hamilton (Richard Attenborough), a wealthy patron of London’s jazz scene, throws a one-year wedding anniversary celebration for band leader Rx and his retired singer/wife Delia (Paul Harris and Marti Stevens.) Rex’s drummer Johnny Cousin (Patrick McGoohan) wants to found his own band but he can’t do it without backing from Rod and Rec’s talent agent, neither of whom will support him unless Delia comes out of retirement as Johnny’s lead singer. Because Rex doesn’t support the idea of his wife returning to the business Johnny begins a campaign of rumor and innuendo to break the marriage.

All Night Long transpires over a single evening’s party set in a single location. In addition to a find cast of actors the film boasts an impressive number of the UK’s premier jazz musicians along with American Dave Brubeck. In fact, the film’s chief flaw in my opinion are the jazz breaks where the story slams to a halt while the movie lingers on, albeit exquisite, musical performances that for the most part neither advance plot nor illuminate character.

McGoohan’s turn as the Iago-like Johnny is at times charming, sociopathic, and pitiful. Johnny is a man who has plotted and planned big dreams and on the cusp of realizing one of them breaks nearly everyone around him.

Paul Harris, whose physical stature and commanding voice is reminiscent William Marshall, delivers a subtle performance as a man seemingly confident of his place in place but subject to the erosion of self-doubt and jealousy.

The film is captured in black-and-white helping to create a noir sensibility but without the exaggerated stylistic impressions barrowed from German Expressionism. Here the monochrome, though perhaps a budgetary restraint, helps ground the film in a stormy night’s realism.

The soundtrack is naturally jazz but unlike many films that utilized jazz as a cost-cutting tool here some of the greats of the era are on display giving lovely performances, even if they did not always serve the film well.

All Night Long with a brief running time of an hour and a half is an enjoyable drama with noirovertones and worth the time. It is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Noir Archive: Volume 3 a collection of Columbia film noirs, kicks off with The Shadow on the Window, a movie that might be better called noir-adjacent rather than an actual film noir.

Petey, a little boy, is traumatized after witnessing the murder of an elderly farmer and an attack on his mother. Nearly catatonic he runs/wanders off until through a few concerned citizens he is delivered to the police station where the audience learns he is the son of a detective, Tony Atlas, recently separated from his wife. Aware that his wife would never carelessly loose Petey, and that some traumatic events has unbalanced his son, Atlas and the police force begin search for the mother and attempt to unravel the mysterious event in a race against time.

The Shadow on the Window is a straightforward narrative with no unexpected reveals and twists in the plot. Linda Atlas is being held by three thugs who hadn’t intended on murder as part of their robbery and who now argue over how to deal with their captive. Detective Atlas follows leads and clues as he attempts to track back Petey’s course aware that his woofer is in danger but ignorant of enough specifics to effect an immediate rescue. With a short running time of 73 minutes Shadowdoesn’t lag or waste screen-time, always moving forward which helps considerably with its lack of mystery. In my opinion the best noirs often have a reveal in the third act that recontextualizes the previous story elements without that aspect Window plays more like a procedural drama than a murky noir of concealed motivations and alliances. Still, it entertains for the hour and a quarter it plays and the filmmakers throw enough obstacles into Detective Atlas’ investigation that the film has sufficient tension despite its production code enforced ending.

Given that I had appointments to keep today I took the day off from my day-job and that provided me the opportunity to head out to the cinemas and see Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light which is the Guillermo del Toro production presented in black and white.

First off let me say that the feature was absolutely fabulous in B&W. There have been other feature films in recent years that have released monochrome editions, Mad Max: Fury Road Black and Chrome and Logan Noir, and neither of these alternative versions were as beautiful or as fitting as Nightmare Alley’s. I think del Toro envisioned the feature in black-and-white, with all the production design aimed at that target. Also as a period piece we movie lovers are so used to seeing that era in monochrome that it feels more natural and strangely more realistic without vibrant colors. That is not to say that the production design suffered in color. It was beautiful and captivating and a true testament to the artistry and skill of the team.

Where The Tragedy of Macbeth in Black and white feels stagey, unreal, this film feels grounded because of it.

Watching the film a second time it grew on me more and I was even more deeply immersed in the story and the characters.  The film is layered and the performances at time quite subtle. With a repeat viewing I became more aware of symbolic establishments that foretold the eventual end for the charlatan Stanton Carlisle. It was also clear in subtle moments when characters had committed themselves to irrevocable courses of action. I enjoyed the movie the first time, last night I loved it.

Included with the Blu-ray set Noir Archive: Volume 3 The Lineup from 1958 in my opinion scarcely qualifies a film noir and rather a poor police procedural. Despite being penned by noted screenwriter Sterling Silliphant and directed by veteran filmmaker Don Siegal the movie plays like a larger budget television series episode which is understandable as it adapted from a TV and radio show of the same name.

After a stolen luggage job goes wrong at the steamship docks leaving a cop and a cabbie dead police inspectors Guthrie and Quine start searching for the members of a narcotics ring that uses unsuspecting passengers to smuggler rather small amounts of heroin through customs. Simultaneously a hitman, his handler, and a local get away driver, are crisscrossing San Francisco retrieving the contraband murdering as they go.

While The Lineup has some nice location shooting and captures much of the flavor of the city by the bay the film is ultimately too sedate to be of much interest. The Inspectors are never emotionally involved in their case and the hitman and his handler are too unsympathetic to be engaging characters despite some minor quirks to make them at least superficially interesting. Over all my verdict is that there is no need to seek out this movie as there are far better low budget noirs to watch.

The story centers on two LAPD homicide detectives, Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta, perhaps best known as Mr. Takagi from 1984’s Die Hard.) and Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) investigating the shooting murder of a celebrated stripper. The detectives, friends, partners, and roommates, following their service together in the Korean War, have little to go on to solve the murder save the stripper’s plans for a new act inspired by Japanese culture. Their investigation brings them into contact with local painter Christine Downs (Victoria Shaw) and a romantic triable between the two detectives and Christine forms threatening both the investigation and Joe’s and Charlie’s friendship.

The Crimson Kimono is bold in its depiction of interracial romance in defiance of the Production Code still a year out from its official abandonment in 1968. Joe Kojaku and the other Asian characters, both Korean and Japanese, are treated with respect and written as fully developed characters with their ethnicity as an aspect of their characters and not the sole defining elements. the friendship between Joe and Charlie feels real and has the depth that writer/Director Sam Fuller often explored in men who have seen brutal combat. Christine is a little less fully developed but does have at least a few layers to her personality.

Fuller’s script is clumsy in handling the twin plots of this brief 82-minute movie, never quite grasping a pleasing balance between investigation and romantic drama with large sections that make it seem like the other thread has been forgotten. While the film deals with racism and is plainly anti-racist in its views it also is hampered by a naivete as to racism’s prevalence in American society. I found it impossible to accept Joe’s assertion that he had never encountered anti-Japanese racism once in the Army or on the LAPD force. The declaration dramatically undercut the tension when Joe has mistakenly believed that Charlie’s animosity is in part racially inspired.

The film is further harmed by a score that attempts to incorporate traditional Western and Asian musical themes but does so in a manner that feels cheap and inauthentic with the Asian motifs sounding more like parody or satire.

However even with those fairly blatant flaws The Crimson Kimono remains a brave piece of fiction depicting love, romantic and otherwise, between characters of different races and manages to thematically tie the murder at the center of the mystery to this premise.

Guillermo del Toro like Edmund Goulding in 1947 has adapted William Lindsay Gresham’s cynical crime novel Nightmare Alley to the silver screen. Del Toro and Kim Morgan’s screenplay follow the same core beats and arc as the 1947 film and the novel.

Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) drifts into work for Clem’s (Willem Dafoe) low-end carnival. There he learns the basic of the carny trade, how to fake mind-reading while getting a taste for
the grift. After acquiring the skills and confidence to aim higher than carny life, together with the innocent Molly (Rooney Mara) Stan leaves for bigger, brighter gigs as a nightclub act. There a chance encounter brings him to psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and the possibility of even greater cons and even greater dangers as Stan reaches beyond his grasp.

While following the same core acts, events, and arc of the 47 film Del Toro’s is 39 minutes longer, lingering with the world of the traveling carnival and amid the misfits that del Toro so clearly loves. If you are a fan of the Tyrone Power adaptation nothing in this one is going to come as a major surprise with the most explicit differences arising from the original film’s Production Code limitations. Molly remains virtuous, Stan remains too ambitious for his own good, while Dr. Ritter is even more icy and more calculating than before. That said del Toro has returned to the source material for the story’s final resolution which the 47 adaptation avoided leaving the audience with a colder, darker, and more cynical thematic tone.

The cinematography is this production is dark, moody, and while there is a wide color palate the colors are far from saturated giving the film’s environments a used and shabby atmosphere. Costuming is subtle and on point capturing each character without drawing over attention. the acting is mostly restrained and naturalistic save for the moments of highest emotional strain and in a small role Mary Steenburgen frightens with a smile.

It would be wrong to compare the 47 and the 2021 productions. They were made under very different restrictions and with very different intentions. I think it is possibly to embrace and love both films as they are without preferencing one over the other. Again, the most meaningful difference lay in the film’s final resolution and the very different lives ahead for Stan in each version. I am thoroughly happy that I braved the cool wet weather and three hours in a fabric mask to witness this beautiful, haunting, and frightening film.