Dana Andrews

The Iron Curtain

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Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews

Winston Churchill made his “iron curtain” speech on 5 March 1946. In late 1947, 20th Century-Fox went into production with The Iron Curtain, one of a rake of movies designed to prove to the House Un-American Activities Committee that its assertion – “subversive” Hollywood doesn’t make anti-communist films – was baseless. The fact that filming started two days after the “Hollywood Ten” had been blacklisted for refusing to answer HUAC’s questions is also significant. Considering its whens and wheres, the resulting film is a remarkably sophisticated work – it’s not just anti-communist propaganda but also a coded rebuke to the likes of Senators McCarthy and J Parnell Thomas and their prescriptive view of what … Read more

Night of the Demon

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Holden at Stonehenge

Moody horror from Jacques Tourneur, Night of the Demon battles all the way against a studio that wanted to make the director’s psychological approach more literal. Hence the Demon itself, shown early on and right at the end, against Tourneur’s wishes. From this distance Tourneur was obviously right. There’s nothing remotely convincing in what looks like a toy dinosaur being shaken about by a props man. But on to the plot, which is adapted from an MR James story – usually a good sign. Dana Andrews plays John Holden, an American man of science who’s been invited to England by fellow scientist Professor Harrington to speak at a conference debunking ghosties and ghoulies, … Read more

In Harm’s Way

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Eddington and Annalee at the beach

Did the world need Otto Preminger’s In Harm’s Way in 1965? Does it need it now? After all if you’re in the market for a big, formless war movie shot in expensive-looking black and white and starring John Wayne, there is and was 1962’s The Longest Day. But Day was Europe and Way is the Pacific, the thinking obviously went. And so here we are. The action kicks off in Pearl Harbor on the evening before it’s bombed by the Japanese. By the end of the attack the film’s two main characters, heroic Captain Rock Torrey (John Wayne) and his no-less-courageous first officer Commander Paul Eddington (Kirk Douglas), have both been busted down … Read more

Boomerang!

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Father Lambert with a gun to his head

Boomerang! – what a great movie. Fully justifying that screamer, this movie from 1947 doesn’t get the love it deserves. For two reasons, of which more later. But first let’s clear away the baggage. It’s not a film noir, though it’s often described as one. Instead it’s one of those “ripped from the headlines” crime dramas that came along a bit later, relying on “you are there” levels of authenticity to bolster its dramatic credentials. In a written preamble we’re told that not only was the film shot on the same locations as the events it relates, but it uses some of the same people. The first is not true. The real-life incidents … Read more

Where the Sidewalk Ends

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Mark Dixon with the man he's just accidentally killed

Not the best Otto Preminger film but a very good example of what he was about, Where the Sidewalk Ends is a film noir directed with maximum economy that re-teams Laura‘s golden pairing of Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, he again impassive as you like, she almost unbearably long-suffering. It’s not much of a role for her, as Laura wasn’t in fact (her character was literally dead for most of it and for the rest of it represented ideal womanhood). But for Andrews it’s a great example of his abilities inside the noir genre, where minimalism is generally the best option. No one was more minimal than Andrews. He’s Dirty Harry before Dirty … Read more

Fallen Angel

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Eric and Stella

Watching a conman grift himself into a corner is always fun. In 1945’s Fallen Angel Otto Preminger gives us just that while Dana Andrews delivers another of the flat-faced, almost featureless performances he was so good at. He plays the shyster arriving in a small town with barely a cent in his pocket, who sets about trying to work his charms on a town full of hayseeds. Stop number one, another pair of grifters who run a clairvoyant act. But even before he gets stuck into Professor Madley (John Carradine, cadaverous features well deployed) and his assistant Joe (Olin Howard), Eric (Andrews) has had the misfortune of running into Stella (Linda Darnell), the … Read more

Laura

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Laura with Shelby Carpenter

A complex psychological thriller masquerading as a film noir, 1944’s Laura is about three men who are bewitched by a woman so ethereally, transcendentally beguiling that it is entirely appropriate that, when director Otto Preminger takes the curtain up, Laura (Gene Tierney) is already dead. What follows is a basic whodunit pulled in various unusual directions. A for-instance: the cop on the case, Detective McPherson (Dana Andrews), invites one of the men suspected of killing her, Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), to accompany him while he cross-examines other witnesses. What cop does that? Another: the cop doesn’t do very much actual investigating and instead spends an inordinate amount of time in the dead woman’s … Read more

While the City Sleeps

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Dana Andrews, Sally Forrest, Thomas Mitchell and Ida Lupino sitting at a bar

While the City Sleeps is one of the great noir titles. Which is not the same as saying it’s one of the great noir movies. In fact it’s barely noir at all. Though it does start off looking like it might be. A lurid murder before the opening credits, then titles that come blaring at us in gigantic white letters, while Herschel Burke Gilbert’s title music of clarion brass and shrill strings suggests a great noirish feast is about to be served up. The director’s name – Fritz Lang – also promises the same. He’d done Scarlet Street and The Big Heat, after all, noir lodestones. There’s been a murder and the murderer … Read more

Daisy Kenyon

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Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda

Let’s just get this out of the way. Daisy Kenyon isn’t a film noir, even though it features on many noir “best of” lists. It’s a romantic melodrama of a very peculiar sort – “High powered melodrama surefire for the femme market” is how Variety described it on its release in 1947, in their odd, truncated way of communicating. More up-to-the-minute viewpoints can be found on Amazon – “NOT a true example of film noir”… “certainly not a film noir”… “DEFINITELY NOT FILM NOIR” – three of many. However, the tagging persists. It’s in the Fox Film Noir series of movies, its Amazon page pegs it as “Mystery & Suspense/Film Noir”, which is doubly, … Read more