Quote P. Raven Nevermore


That Philip Raven. He don’t stick his neck out for anybody. Besides, he was once hurt by a woman. Really hurt. And now the only things he trusts besides himself are his gat and his cat -- and sometimes not even his cat.

We first see Philip Raven (played by Alan Ladd) at a boarding house in San Francisco where he is planning his latest assignment.: the murder of a blackmailer. He shows kindness to a stray cat but not to the maid who cleans his room. Instead he attacks her and tears her dress because she objects to his feeding the cat. But that does not matter because he has been hurt, you see. Really hurt.

Raven then goes to murder the blackmailer only to find that he is with a female companion, so he shoots her too. On the way out, he contemplates shooting a crippled girl on the stairway who is the only potential witness to his arrival. Then she asks him for a dropped ball and he realizes she is blind. Which is just as well because he was not hurt by a girl. He was hurt by a woman. Really hurt.

He shows up at a local diner for his payoff, which he receives from a fat man who likes peppermints. The fat man (played by Laird Cregar) is the type who allegedly abhors violence but does not mind paying for it as long as someone else does the dirty work. When he is greeted by someone who addresses him by the name “Dr. William Gates,” the fat man promptly claims such a greeting to be a case of mistaken identity. But Raven is not fooled.

Then Raven discovers that he has been paid with stolen money and that the serial numbers of the bills had been given to the police. He vows to track down the mysterious “Gates” who set him up but first he runs across the path of nightclub entertainer Ellen Graham (played by Veronica Lake). Graham recently talked Gates into giving her job at his club in Los Angeles. Shortly before she meets Raven, we find out that she has been recruited by an U.S. senator who has heard about Gates meeting with suspected foreign agents. Ms. Graham’s role as a true-blue patriot is to find out what is going on with Gates and those agents. But her assignment is so secret she cannot even tell her police detective boyfriend about it.

Then she crosses path with Raven. She and Raven sit side by side in the same railroad car and while they’re sleeping, Gates -- who is also on board the train -- sees the two of them together and concludes that they are connected.

Suddenly Graham is being set up by Gates and her only hope is Raven the hired killer. The same Raven who at one point of the movie, contemplated killing her to eliminate a possible witness. Because he has been hurt by a woman you see. Really hurt.

As you might guess, the main themes of this movie are deception and redemption. Gates deceives Raven, Graham deceives Gates, Gates deceives the police and Raven deceives himself. Indeed, apart from the police detective, everybody seems to be deceiving someone else at some point in this movie. (And when the police detective proposes to Graham and takes seriously her words about giving up a successful career in show business to take up housekeeping and baby raising, I cannot help but wonder if the police detective is not deceiving himself as to Graham’s eagerness to do all that. But I digress.) However, even an evil hired killer like Philip Raven might -- just might -- be capable of a good deed. Like saving Ms. Graham from Gates and his Axis-loving associates.

Toward the end, Graham attempts to appeal to Raven’s patriotism only to be turned down cold. Raven is not interested in being a good patriot; he is only interested in revenge. Does he get it? Does his vendetta against Gates ruin Graham’s quest to expose Gates’ ring of traitors?

For the answer to these and other questions, you will have to see the 1942 thriller This Gun for Hire for yourself. I suppose I could tell you how it all comes out but I don‘t stick my neck out for anybody.

She’s Not Bad, She’s Just Written That Way




Is it not the way of the world that men like me who see themselves as being a lot like Dana Andrews inevitably fall for women who think we’re more like Percy Kilbride*?

Granted, it would be nice to pretend that a self-proclaimed nice guy would have nothing to do with a woman like the Stella character Linda Darnell plays in 1945’s Fallen Angel. But that would mean lying to myself about the attractiveness of Ms. Darnell, who was quite beautiful at the time she starred in Fallen Angel. And pretending I have not been attracted by women like Stella in the past. And also pretending that I am not a bit intrigued by that flower Darnell wore in her hair which seems reminiscent of the flowers sometimes worn in old movies by Latin or Polynesian women. Was director Otto Preminger hinting that Stella came not just from the other side of the tracks but also from the other side of the color line? We will never know but then some mysteries are more fun when you do not get definite answers.

It might be argued that the scene in which Stella first entered the diner where she worked and automatically attracted the attention of every straight guy in the place -- including Pop the diner owner (played by Percy Kilbride), who enjoyed a relationship with Stella that seemed more like that of a husband and wife than one of boss and employee** -- was a wee bit exaggerated. But not by much. After all, I have known women from backgrounds every bit as humble as Stella’s who nevertheless managed to attract a ton of boyfriends, both would-be and otherwise, while working in environments that were just as humble as the diner in which Stella worked. And anyway, realism was not really the point.



Fallen Angel can be said to be a reverse version of Preminger’s 1944 hit Laura, the movie in which a police detective (played by Dana Andrews) fell in love with a woman he believed to be dead. In this movie, Dana Andrews played Eric Stanton, a drifter who had little use for the police -- or any moral code, for that matter. Though he was quick to characterize himself as more sinned against than sinning, he had no scruples about playing advance man for a con man who liked to pose as a spiritualist. And equally little scruples about using his research skills to dig up dirt that would embarrass a potential opponent of said con man.

While waiting for his employer, Stanton stopped in at the diner mentioned above and met Stella. Instantly, he was smitten. However, Stella was not so quick to requite his affection. The lady not only demanded that he first put a ring on her finger but that he also provide her with a permanent residence as well. Though Stanton was quick to sneer at Stella’s dream of the traditional house with a white picket fence, he was also quick to realize that he would never win Stella over without having enough money to fulfill her wishes. Unfortunately, the fastest way for him to get said money was to marry wealthy spinster June Mills (played by Alice Faye) -- who just happened to be the same woman he just humiliated on behalf of his con man employer. And said spinster had a sister named Clara (played by Anne Revere), who was suspicious of Stanton's intentions toward her sibling. So Stanton’s work was cut out for him.

And once he did seem to be on the verge of getting everything he wanted, tragedy struck. And suddenly Stanton was left wondering why he ever wanted what he wanted in the first place.

But wait! There’s more.

Stanton was suspected of a major crime. The police detective investigating said crime was not above beating up suspects and Stanton obviously did not cotton to getting beat up. But if he did not commit said crime, who did? A romantic rival? Pop? Clara? June?

As usual in this kind of film, the posing of the mystery was a lot more interesting than its solution. But the film is still watchable even if Ms. Faye does not quite seem cut out to play a good film noir role.

As for Stella, I cannot help observing that for a so-called bad girl, she was very principled. She did not cheat on her dates. She did not go back on a deal. She did not kiss and tell. When Stanton told her his plans to get rich by marrying another woman, she rightly sneered at him. And though she never discouraged Stanton from going through with his scheme -- indeed, she sneered at him when he talked about calling it off -- I got the feeling that her prime motivation throughout the movie was not so much selfishness -- if she were truly selfish, she would be a lot more supportive of Stanton’s plan to marry into wealth -- as much as it was fear of abandonment. After all, Stella’s looks would not have lasted forever and since her lovers had a history of dropping her the minute she demanded a commitment, she had little reason to assume Stanton would not abandon her too once he got what he wanted. Hence her insistence on a wedding ring. Hence her insistence on a house. Hence her insistence on Stanton's proving his love in a way that would not vanish the moment he stopped being nuts about her.

Believe it or not, I have met women like Stella who have no trouble finding guys who want to go to bed with them but who have considerable more problems finding someone who is willing to stay with them afterward. And though I know the Hays Code would prefer that I feel differently, I must confess I feel more sympathy for Stella than I do for almost any other character in Fallen Angel apart from Clara and Pop. Even Stanton was not all that sympathetic compared to Stella. He made it evident early on that his original intention was for an one-night affair with Stella and that he only “settled” for something more permanent when Stella resisted.

Granted, Stella was a hard girl to like. Then again guys like me like a challenge.

* For those of you who can't tell, Percy Kilbride is the guy in the above photo who is standing next to the girl and he is most famous for playing Pa Kettle in the Pa and Ma Kettle movies. Dana Andrews is the guy standing outside the door. Linda Darnell, of course, is the girl.

** Of course, poor Pop seemed a tad more henpecked than most husbands and Stella, of course, was a bit more headstrong than most wives. But then I never said their relationship resembled that of a perfect marriage.

The Thousand-Yard Stare of Desire and Other Expressions



He was looking at her; she wished she could see his face. “You couldn’t have done this if you loved him, Natalie. You couldn’t have locked him up like an animal. It isn’t love you feel for him. It may be almost as strong, but it isn’t love. It’s something else. Something bad.”
--Robert Rodi, Fag Hag

Writing about movies you like is relatively easy. You think of your favorite parts, you try to describe in a way that does not give away all the fun for future viewers and then you try to describe all the emotions you felt throughout the movie.

For that matter, writing about movies you hate is easy. You think of your least favorite parts, you try to describe them in a way that would discourage would-be viewers without giving away too much to those who will probably go ahead and see it anyway and then you try to describe the emotions you felt throughout the movie.

What is hard to write about are the movies that produce mixed reactions. On one hand, you cannot really pretend you hated the flick. On the other hand, if you write too knowingly about the film, you might give away a part of yourself that you might not want to give away.

Take 1952’s Angel Face, for example. Like most movies in its genre, it is tempting to take the movie less than seriously and say, “Oh, yes, I would never act that way. Only idiots would act that way.”

But to take that route, one would have to believe that no one would ever act that way. That no one you know or care to know or used to know ever fell for someone who was all wrong for them, someone who was bad for them or someone who would eventually prove quite harmful to them. And I cannot do that.

I have known too many women who were beaten by spouses or boyfriends with whom they were once in love. Hell, I know too many people of both sexes who have gotten emotionally involved with people who brought them nothing but problems.

Moreover, while I am vain enough to pretend I would have made a different choice than ambulance driver Frank Jessup (played by Robert Mitchum) did in this movie, it is hard for me to take one look at Jean Simmons’s dark pupils and pretend there is not a part of me that would fall for her too.

Am I blind to the fact her character (Diane Tremayne) was a bit crazy? No.

But I am also not blind to the fact that men often like crazy. Blame on self-destructive tendencies, a mixture of the eros and thanatos instincts or even lives of quiet desperation, but people in the real world don’t always make the sanest choices -- especially if they believe there are no ideal choices to be made.

Thus, while part of me identifies with the character who did his damnedest to stay away from Ms. Tremayne and found himself a relatively sane girlfriend, part of me also identifies with Jessup, who, of course, made the opposite choice.

Then there was the whole murder question. Jessup suspected early on that Tremayne had it in for her stepmother and that she had even made an unsuccessful attempt on said step-mom’s life. Yet he was still drawn to her. He often insisted throughout the movie that he was still attracted to his old girlfriend Mary, who worked at a nearby hospital. But when it came to the temptation offered by a young and beautiful rich girl like Ms. Tremayne, Jessup did not put up much of a fight. Nor did he once consider alerting the local police about his suspicions -- even when they were proved right.

I will be the first to admit that I have never been attracted to a murderer. But I have known people who have been involved with either murderers or would-be murderers. Indeed, for a time, I even envied a cousin who had done jail time for murder -- not because I wanted to be a criminal -- I did not -- but because at the time, he seemed to be more successful at attracting women than I was. In the end, the cousin proved to be a person who was not worth envying, and I like to think that my life is a lot happier today because I did not even try to follow in his footsteps. Like the ghost in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, I have tried to leave all my girlfriends happier than I found them and while I am not conceited enough to pretend I was always successful, I am prideful enough to admit that I at least tried.

And yet there was something about the thousand-yard stare of desire Ms. Tremayne displayed in one scene when she played the piano while thinking of Jessup that lured me like some nocturnal winged insect to a lit candle. Or a clear-eared sailor to a Siren’s shoreline.

Yes, it would be nice if men like Jessup went only for the nice women. The women who had nothing wrong with them. The ladies who were not crazy. But people are not always attracted to that which is good for them.

I will admit though that I was attracted to Mary as much as I was attracted to Diane and I envied the guy who ended up with her far more than I envied Jessup. But then, given what happened to Jessup as a result of his choice, that would be a no-brainer.

Pop Song of the Week: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

I wish I could take credit for this video's creation but, alas, I can only take credit for my decision to post it here. Apparently the creator took clips from a bunch of old movies -- especially movies in the film noir genre -- and created this short film, set to the Ted Weems version of one of my favorite Harry Warren songs.

The Ted Weems version isn't exactly my favorite version of this tune but I like it far better than the more recent Green Day song that bears the same title. And, of course, the clips are nice, too, though I'm not sure why the filmmaker chose to end with a clip of Sharon Stone.

I hope you all enjoy it... even if it is a bit... ahem... out of the past.