300-329; 354-357 Columbia Noir #1-6

[yoloswegmaster]

Are any of the Bogart films that we know are coming any good?

[beamish14]

Are any of the Bogart films that we know are coming any good?

Knock on Any Door is fantastic. I don't know why it's become so relatively obscure despite the pairing of him and Nicholas Ray. Up with Marleen Gorris' A Question of Silence and La Verite as one of my favourite courtroom dramas.

[domino harvey]

Are any of the Bogart films that we know are coming any good?

I don’t like Knock on Any Door as much as beamish but it does have a line so good that I stole it to use in my day to day conversation

SpoilerShow

“I hope so too, but there have been very few miracles since the 13th century”

I’ve seen all of the other ones we know are coming but I don’t really remember that much about them! Here are my writeups for two of them

Sirocco (Curtis Bernhardt 1951) Reminiscent of the damnation in Westerns of those who refused to pick a side in the Civil War, here Humphrey Bogart plays a cavalier gun-runner who plays for both the Syrians and the French whenever it best suits him. And in the Western tradition, he's the only one who really ends up paying for it. The film gets accused of invoking a lot of Casablanca's basic components, but the film is so lifeless and poorly paced that it certainly is not evocative due to matters of quality. Also features what must be the most subdued Lee J Cobb performance I've ever seen-- forget if he was awake during this, was I?

Tokyo Joe (Stuart Heisler 1949) Bogart again, this time as a former nightclub owner in Tokyo who finds himself operating a shill freight-running operation for a local Japanese gangster so as to allow him to stay in US-Occupied Japan. There's a suspense story of sorts, I guess, involving the eventual kidnapping of Bogart's illegitimate child, but the film's real raison d'etre is to allow for many baldfaced proclamations in favor of US occupation of Japan and showing "Good" and "Bad" Japanese in relation to how they treat their conquerers. It's interesting in those regards, but as a film, well, not quite. However, if you want to see the most comically unconvincing stunt double this side of I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, check out Bogart's judo fight-- about halfway through the battle the filmmakers just completely abandon any attempts to hide it and it's… embarrassing.

[yoloswegmaster]

I don’t like Knock on Any Door as much as beamish but it does have a line so good that I stole it to use in my day to day conversation

SpoilerShow

“I hope so too, but there have been very few miracles since the 13th century”

I’ve seen all of the other ones we know are coming but I don’t really remember that much about them! Here are my writeups for two of them

SpoilerShow

Sirocco (Curtis Bernhardt 1951) Reminiscent of the damnation in Westerns of those who refused to pick a side in the Civil War, here Humphrey Bogart plays a cavalier gun-runner who plays for both the Syrians and the French whenever it best suits him. And in the Western tradition, he's the only one who really ends up paying for it. The film gets accused of invoking a lot of Casablanca's basic components, but the film is so lifeless and poorly paced that it certainly is not evocative due to matters of quality. Also features what must be the most subdued Lee J Cobb performance I've ever seen-- forget if he was awake during this, was I?

Tokyo Joe (Stuart Heisler 1949) Bogart again, this time as a former nightclub owner in Tokyo who finds himself operating a shill freight-running operation for a local Japanese gangster so as to allow him to stay in US-Occupied Japan. There's a suspense story of sorts, I guess, involving the eventual kidnapping of Bogart's illegitimate child, but the film's real raison d'etre is to allow for many baldfaced proclamations in favor of US occupation of Japan and showing "Good" and "Bad" Japanese in relation to how they treat their conquerers. It's interesting in those regards, but as a film, well, not quite. However, if you want to see the most comically unconvincing stunt double this side of I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, check out Bogart's judo fight-- about halfway through the battle the filmmakers just completely abandon any attempts to hide it and it's… embarrassing.

Knock on Any Door is fantastic. I don't know why it's become so relatively obscure despite the pairing of him and Nicholas Ray. Up with Marleen Gorris' A Question of Silence and La Verite as one of my favourite courtroom dramas.

Thank you both for your insightful comments! I was planning on blind-buying this Bogart at Noir set thinking that it would be of similar quality to the films in the John Ford at Columbia set but now I think it will best to watch some of the forthcoming titles beforehand.

[Finch]

Any opinions on The Harder They Fall? That was the one Bogie I was interested in, along with Knock On Any Door. I have a feeling I'm going to be sitting out another set in favor of individual titles (never bought any of their Hammers as I only wanted Taste of Fear and Captain Clegg). Hoping they'll eventually get to Black Book.

[ryannichols7]

Noir #5 officially confirmed as a Bogart set, to be released 20 June per the newsletter...

Dead Reckoning (1947, John Cromwell)
Knock on Any Door (1949, Nicolas Ray)
Tokyo Joe (1949, Stuart Heisler)
Sirocco (1951, Curtis Bernhardt)
The Harder They Fall (1956, Mark Robson)
The Family Secret (1951, Henry Levin)

the last one being a Bogart production to tie in, described as a rarity

[ryannichols7]

specs:

SpoilerShow

4K restoration of The Harder They Fall
HD presentations of Dead Reckoning, Knock on Any Door, Tokyo Joe, Sirocco and The Family Secret
Original mono audio
Audio commentary with film scholar and preservationist Alan K Rode on Dead Reckoning (2022)
Audio commentary with writer and film historian Pamela Hutchinson on Knock on Any Door (2022)
Audio commentary with writer and film historian Nora Fiore on Tokyo Joe (2022)
Audio commentary with film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson on Sirocco (2022)
Audio commentary with professor and film scholar Jason A Ney on The Family Secret(2022)
Audio commentary with critics and writers Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme on The Harder They Fall (2022)
The South Bank Show: ‘Bogart: Here’s Looking at You, Kid’ (1997): episode of the British arts television series devoted to the iconic actor
Tony Rayns on ‘Dead Reckoning’ (2022): appreciation by the writer and film programmer
Geoff Andrew on ‘Knock on Any Door’ (2022): the critic and programmer discusses Bogart and Nicholas Ray
Bertrand Tavernier on ‘Tokyo Joe’ (2017): archival appreciation by the celebrated filmmaker and critic
Tom Vincent on Sessue Hayakawa (2022): the film archivist looks at the career and stardom of the Tokyo Joe actor from the silent film era through to his Oscar-nominated role in The Bridge on the River Kwai
Christina Newland on ‘The Harder They Fall’ (2022): the critic and writer talks Bogart, boxing and Budd Schulberg
Bertrand Tavernier on ‘The Harder They Fall’ (2017): archival appreciation by the celebrated filmmaker and critic
The Negro Soldier (1944): WWII documentary film intended as a recruitment drive for African American enlistees, directed by Stuart Heisler and now preserved by the National Film Registry for its cultural and historical significance
Jim Pines on ‘The Negro Soldier’ (2010): audio presentation by the author and lecturer, recorded following a screening of the film at London’s BFI Southbank
The Negro Sailor (1945): documentary short film, inspired by the success of The Negro Soldier, directed by Henry Levin
Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945): documentary short film about the formation of the United Nations, directed by John Cromwell
Tuesday in November (1945): documentary short on the US presidential campaign of 1944, on which Nicholas Ray served as assistant director
That Justice Be Done (1945): documentary short on the Nuremberg Trials, written by Budd Schulberg
The Big Moment (1954): short film produced by the United Jewish Appeal starring Knock on Any Door and The Family Secret actor John Derek
Max Baer on Super 8: home cinema presentations of boxing matches featuring the prize fighter who acted in The Harder They Fall, including his famous bout with Primo Carnera that he would recreate in the film
Theatrical trailer for Knock on Any Door
Image galleries: publicity and promotional materials
New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Limited edition exclusive 120-page book with a new essay by Imogen Sara Smith, extensive archival articles and interviews, new writing on the various short films, and film credits
World and UK premieres on Blu-ray
Limited edition box set of 6,000 numbered units
All extras subject to change

#PHILTD324
BBFC cert: 12
REGION B
EAN: 5060697921946

[therewillbeblus]

I'm trying to make my way through the six features before purchase- a rare move for me to make for Indicator's box sets, but hey, inflation. Starting with revisits, which happen to be the first two listed titles, Dead Reckoning improved by a significant margin. What starts out as a paint-by-numbers flashback mystery threatening to revolve itself around uninteresting characters, transforms into an above-average descent into the dark, corrupt spaces of fragmented moral codes and private allegiances to self. Nothing that transpires is all that surprising, but it’s a fun ride with enough bludgeoning KOs, flavorful setpieces, and introverted meditations on high-stakes dilemmas (that delve incessantly into the psyche of Bogart’s principal antihero) to make for an engaging affair.

I loved Bogart’s relentlessly-paced internal monologues, rationalizing out how to play his poor cards in a given scene with equal parts rough desperation and nonchalant tranquility in surrender, culminating in a choice that often fails to yield the favorable result he hoped for. These defeats are reflective of the honest compromises of a powerless hero, and work to challenge the star power of Bogart’s confident machismo, the faux-movie energy that promises a superpower to unconditionally best his opponents with wit. To weigh poisoning himself intentionally in the hope that his one lead may live -only to wake up to a corpse and in a worse predicament than before!- is a refreshing acknowledgment of the noir hero’s impotence in spite of their calm, apathetic exterior, laid bare as contextually meaningless. Bogart keeps his cool throughout and manages to exercise this power aplenty in the last act, so these moments of raw noir isolation are most welcome for balance.

I also appreciated the postwar themes planted during wartime, where the rules and codes contained overseas within military units are securities not afforded by the outside world of ‘home’. The liberation from what should be hell is no longer towards a familiar slice of heaven, and so offering an implicit preference of war as a more comfortable space to engage in under a sturdy ideological intimacy, now absent in the segregated milieus of home as foreign terrain, is depressingly perverse. I know this is a well-trodden perspective in the genre, but the narrative's proximity to this discouraging contrast of unpredictable value in systems makes it all the more jarring- not least because the action takes place in strangely-dressed places that produce the sensation that Bogart could be navigating alien crevices in Europe when he's really on American soil!

This out-of-place feeling should be credited to the strength of Cromwell's direction, who -in addition to weaving his comprehension of ambiance throughout the picture- often flaunts these chops in sporadic explosions that remind us of his potential, including some inspired visual illustrations of Bogart’s hallucogenic fading consciousness, and an elongated climax of a car accident-in-the-making that’s graciously far more thrilling than it needed to be. However, these flourishes aren't allocated with consistency, and Cromwell often defaults to autopilot to match the mediocre script and clear intention for a half-noir Bogart vehicle. Still, the film manages to remain enjoyable and evade the trappings of a tiring programmer with layers of nuance in characterization and involving mise en scene. I could see this being a solid movie to throw on when sick, and that’s a compliment to its craft, digestibility, and steadily-held entertainment value. The end is as brutally violent in its blunt ethos of dehumanization as The Big Sleep’s, with some striking similarities (plus fire), and has an excellent, cool and cruel Bogie line:

SpoilerShow

”How would you like yourself, medium rare?”

Knock on Any Door, on the other hand, is worse than I remembered; a noir only in the most misunderstood, shallow reading possible: blame society, not the individual- a simplistic doling out of fatalism sewn by constructs of environment, which of course boils down a person's entire narrative (:side eye emoji:)! What is trying to be aggressively humanistic winds up pejoratively dismissing agency and dehumanizing the plaintiff, but, then, well, I’m not sure just what this movie wants to be. For a Message Movie, it seems to spoil its own philosophy, and I'm left utterly confused at the takeaway- other than the bait-and-switch consequence of shocking Bogart into crushing pessimism to signify something related to a noir 'feeling'. The only positives here are that Bogart is actually quite good, almost making up for Derek’s awful perf, and Ray directs a competent picture with some creative bits like the hosing 'torture' scene drowning the camera- a neat idea that would be better served in a film that earned the sympathy requested by these tactics. I never thought I’d be begging a film to return from its flashback structure to its 'courtroom thriller' present (surely one of the lamest and most boring subgenres), but I couldn't help but dream off, preying for this to occur more than once. Regardless of the outcome in the denouement, the bulk of this exercise is a trite case of the ‘Poor Me’s, a TV-film with a lean agenda of episodic propaganda going on for about an hour longer than I have patience for.

[therewillbeblus]

Tokyo Joe draws a more sympathetic shade to the femme fatale role, casting a grey shadow over circumstantial self-preservation beyond the usual greed or selfish defaults in (wo)mankind. Bogart’s character is easy to sympathize with, constantly bombarded with unexpected information that challenges his feelings of belongingness in a foreign land, and the inclusion of a reason to initiate an actionable yet consequential quest towards fatalism -in the form of a surprise offspring- fits within this slightly more cushy-version of noir. The film itself is nothing to write home about, but I appreciated some of the nuanced narrative pivots along the way to a predictable endpoint.

Sirocco is a middling wartime melodrama containing an eroding core of noir trappings. The best attribute is an erratically versatile Bogart performance, imbuing a fascinating range that demonstrates the vulnerable position his character is really in despite often playing his dignity as above the conditions of the milieu. The sloppy nonlinear trajectory of Bogart’s responses to setting conditions is fitting and plays in opposition to other performances of range that follow a descent into dysregulation (i.e. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), not that this movie is better than those. I didn’t care much for the tired love triangle dynamic- with both Cobb and Toren severely lacking in their hollow perfs (especially Cobb, what is going on here?!)- but the sense of place is strong, and the peripheral details in mise en scene and sociopolitical background are ones I’m interested in exploring further. I’d soon watch this again with a contextual commentary, and so it’s a point in favor of picking up the set, even if I’m cool on the film as a whole.

The Harder They Fall finds Bogart squaring off with Rod Steiger as corrupt players in a fixed boxing racket. Both of these star principals give their all here, and Robson is a talented filmmaker who, like Ray, gives this film a technical approach of acuity to the boxing matches and drama that the film’s derivative script ultimately doesn’t deserve. I particularly appreciated how fleshed out the overall emotional undercurrent is between Toro’s cultural context as it relates to feelings of shame, versus the American capitalist rationalizations of ethical dilemmas for Bogart and Steiger, without overtly explaining any differentiation and allowing us to feel the vague contrast instead, leaning into the subtext of confusion at the film’s core. It’s a mature take, just one that’s marginal rather than intrinsic to the material. A shame, as there are a lot of talented artists working hard to make this picture a winner.

Ultimately it’ll be the rare inclusion’s potential dark horse status that decides this set’s purchase value.

[therewillbeblus]

The Family Secret is a Bogart-less noir more in step with They Live by Night's gentle meditations on morality v self-preservation than some gritty piece of fatalistic and alienating pulp. It's also not nearly as good, though Derek's performance works much better for his character here than in Knock on Any Door- an immature but still philosophically-strained youth, who leans into both sides of the coin here with believable -if not entirely hair-raisingly 'interesting'- levels of investment. The film is well shot and paced, and it drags out the predicament with the kind of natural suspense one might experience if placed in this position of guilt, but even if it is a well-crafted affair all around, there's still not anything exceptional on the noir front or in upending any narrative expectations. One piece of admiration: Whit Bissell is fantastic as the bookie accused of the crime, and the film deserves props for humanizing his character in depth within a short stint on the stand, and the confines of the production code. His admittance to his 'other' crimes fulfills the check-box needed, and only adds depth to his humanity, making actions and inner morality mutually exclusive, perversely tying his own virtues in with the audiences! In a film comprised of familiar ethical dilemmas, family dynamics, and crime dramas, this is one area the film shines in its writing, accomplished both succinctly and carrying immense power with subtlety.

Of the set, this might be the best-made film after Dead Reckoning, and yet it's not one I'd be particularly inclined to revisit anytime soon. So, a cool inclusion, but not enough to sell me the set. If they ever break it up, I'll pick up Dead Reckoning in a heartbeat though.

[MichaelB]

Powerhouse co-founder John Morrissey discusses the ongoing Indicator noir project here courtesy of this Musiquemachine interview.

He also reveals that Volume 6 is in active development (I can attest to this), and that it will come from a different studio.

[yoloswegmaster]

It's also revealed that there is a neo-noir boxset in the works.

[alacal2]

And some British noir too I see.

[ryannichols7]

so it would be Universal (all but confirmed) Noir #6 as opposed to volume 1?

either way, looking forward to adding more

[rapta]

Yeah, I'd have assumed it'd be Universal Noir #1 rather than Universal Noir #6...and I assume the studio is Universal as they've teased Naked Alibi more than once now.

Excited by the mention of neo-noir titles/sets (I'm assuming 80's/90's/00's). Depends how broad they're looking but hoping that means we could see Sony titles like One False Move, Thunderheart, U-Turn, The Indian Runner, Panic Room, Revenge, Single White Female, 8 Million Ways To Die; Universal titles like The Man Who Wasn't There, Clockers, Traffic, Out of Sight, The Underneath, Arlington Road, Carlito's Way, Sea of Love, The Gingerbread Man; StudioCanal titles like Manhunter, Narrow Margin, Johnny Handsome, Music Box; or Paramount titles like Witness, Breakdown, Hard Eight, Twilight, Black Rain, Internal Affairs.

A Simple Plan may still be with Universal in the UK too (otherwise, probably Paramount, who produced it). There are some where the rights might be trickier as they're with other distributors like Icon (Affliction, The Getaway), and not sure about the rights to others (The Player, Homicide, Wild at Heart, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral, New Rose Hotel, The Black Dahlia, Blue Steel).

And lastly, I thought I heard quite a while ago that Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai was coming from StudioCanal at some point but I've yet to see anything (Film4 had the UK rights originally). Somebody said they passed it through the BBFC last year, but nothing since (and I can't find those details now).

[Finch]

I'd hope that there's either a Columbia Noir Vol 6 with Black Book (Reign of Terror) included or that the Mann gets a standalone release which it would warrant, frankly. It'd be a shame if it's shut out while filler like some of the films in Vol 4 especially gets a spine number. I'm also hoping that the neo noir set has a line up that emphasises quality over quantity more than Imprint's which had only One False Move and After Dark, My Sweet as the great titles out of a total of six. Smaller sets of three titles at a slightly lower RRP would be welcome, say, One False Move/Single White Female/Indian Runner (Sony) or The Man Who Wasn't There/Out Of Sight/Clockers (Universal). Pity the two John Dahl titles are already with other UK labels.

[dwk]

Criterion has The Man Who Wasn't There in the US, and I'd say odds are they have also licensed the UK rights.

[colinr0380]

In terms of 80s neo noir there's Body Heat and the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

I'm still fond of Channel 4's "Dark & Deadly" season back in 1995 which did a premiere of a modern neo-noir film during the week and then a classic film noir late on a Friday evening. Being recent The Usual Suspects and The Last Seduction (which I'd love to revisit) were too new to feature (though were probably the reason why the season was made) but during that season they showed: One False Move, After Dark, My Sweet, The Hot Spot, Red Rock West, Ruby, Rush (with apologies to Finch! And I quite like Mortal Thoughts too!) and Kill Me Again

I'd be quite excited if something like Delusion turned up (which, with apologies in advance to zedz, is the film Carl Colpaert made after In The Aftermath and is co-written by Kurt Voss, who also co-wrote Border Radio!). Or could myself and John Cope lobby for Mike Figgis' Liebestraum as a neo noir? And a post 1990s film I particularly liked was Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun.

[therewillbeblus]

Red Rock West was my first thought- it's uncanny there's still no blu-ray outside of Germany. It's an incredibly pleasurable and accessible film on all fronts

[swo17]

Agreed

[rapta]

I'd hope that there's either a Columbia Noir Vol 6 with Black Book (Reign of Terror) included or that the Mann gets a standalone release which it would warrant, frankly. It'd be a shame if it's shut out while filler like some of the films in Vol 4 especially gets a spine number. I'm also hoping that the neo noir set has a line up that emphasises quality over quantity more than Imprint's which had only One False Move and After Dark, My Sweet as the great titles out of a total of six. Smaller sets of three titles at a slightly lower RRP would be welcome, say, One False Move/Single White Female/Indian Runner (Sony) or The Man Who Wasn't There/Out Of Sight/Clockers (Universal). Pity the two John Dahl titles are already with other UK labels.

I agree, I thought The Black Book/Reign of Terror would be in a future set, along with a few others. I have the Kit Parker set with that in, as well as things like Address Unknown and Assignment Paris, which I assumed Indicator would get later on (and I'd probably then sell the set).

And yes, smaller sets would make sense, and grouped into studios where necessary (though Sony have been more open to mixing with other studios it seems; there are a few Indicator sets with mixed Sony and StudioCanal titles, including that Robin Hood Hammer set that was just announced). And yeah, the John Dahl titles are taken - I'd obviously love a new edition of The Last Seduction but it's with ITV so unless they allowed Network to restore it, that's probably not going to happen in the UK (ITV apparently only deal in bulk deals, hence why Network can afford to as they license a lot of TV series).

Criterion has The Man Who Wasn't There in the US, and I'd say odds are they have also licensed the UK rights.

Ah yeah, I forgot about that. That could well happen then, unless a UK label licensed it from Universal before Criterion did. More likely Criterion did though, like you say.

In terms of 80s neo noir there's Body Heat and the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

I'm still fond of Channel 4's "Dark & Deadly" season back in 1995 which did a premiere of a modern neo-noir film during the week and then a classic film noir late on a Friday evening. Being recent The Usual Suspects and The Last Seduction (which I'd love to revisit) were too new to feature (though were probably the reason why the season was made) but during that season they showed: One False Move, After Dark, My Sweet, The Hot Spot, Red Rock West, Ruby, Rush (with apologies to Finch! And I quite like Mortal Thoughts too!) and Kill Me Again

I'd be quite excited if something like Delusion turned up. Or could myself and John Cope lobby for Mike Figgis' Liebestraum as a neo noir? And a post 1990s film I particularly liked was Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun.

Both Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice are with Warner Bros so won't be coming from Indicator...

Already considered The Hot Spot but it's MGM, again who don't deal with Indicator (and are now controlled by Amazon, so new deals are unlikely at this point). After Dark, My Sweet and The Way of the Gun are both seemingly with Lionsgate, so again quite unlikely.

Red Rock West was my first thought- it's uncanny there's still no blu-ray outside of Germany. It's an incredibly pleasurable and accessible film on all fronts

Finally coming from Signal One Entertainment very soon, with extras and even a booklet apparently. They licensed it years ago but have only just got through their backlog of Fox titles, and are now onto the other studios (this is Universal).

[MichaelB]

As of a few minutes ago, Columbia Noir Vol 2 is five copies away from going OOP.

[Stefan Andersson]

Would Indicator be interested in releasing one or two Best of Columbia Noir boxes?

If so, here are my votes for content:

The Undercover Man
5 Against the House
The Lineup
The Mob
Murder by Contract
City of Fear
The Dark Past
Pushover
The Brothers Rico

Is The Burglar (Wendkos) from Indicator a possibility?

[bottlesofsmoke]

Would Reign of Terror fit into the Columbia Noir theme? I think it was an Eagle-Lion film like T-Men and Raw Deal and didn’t have anything to do with Columbia.

Whatever the case, it’s a film totally worthy of a solo release, though. Just Mann, Menzies, and Alton’s involvement alone should provide a wealth of potential extras.

[MichaelB]

Columbia Noir #5: Humphrey Beaver.