Elia Kazan

Blues in the Night

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The band all together playing

A jazzy, noirish take on the “getting the band together” drama, Blues in the Night benefits from crisp images and snappy dialogue. On the downside, everyone in it is about ten years too old for their role, there is quite a lot of “hep cat daddio” slang to digest and the racial politics are a mess. But if you can take the rough with the smooth, it’s bright and well paced, with a good plot, interesting acting and even a few good tunes – look on it as a semi-musical, maybe. It’s also the film that convinced Elia Kazan to pack in acting and take up directing. He says he was convinced he … Read more

Panic in the Streets

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Dr Reed explaining that it's plague

Steve Soderbergh’s Contagion seemed to be required viewing during Covid, Panic in the Streets not so much. But Elia Kazan’s film from 1950 has much to say about epidemics, why nipping them in the bud is important, how government can be a force for good and why scepticism needs to be countered not with shrillness but facts, reason and the force of argument. All this wrapped up in a tense, noirish thriller starring Richard Widmark and handing Jack Palance the first of a long string of “mad dog” roles, which he was uniquely suited to playing. As Soderbergh, so Kazan – realism and immediacy are the key concerns. Panic in the Streets is … 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

A Face in the Crowd

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Larry on live TV

Loved by Truffaut, borrowed by Spike Lee, strangely overlooked today, A Face in the Crowd is a prescient film from 1957 that uses the word “influencer”, is worried about demagogues in public life, the corrupting effect of the media and the weird lives of celebrities. It’s directed by Elia Kazan, a man with an eye for for a political meme – he did Gentleman’s Agreement (anti-semitism) and On the Waterfront (union corruption) – and was made five years after he’d testified to the House Unamerican Activities Committee and “named names”. The febrile McCarthyite atmosphere of the times is partly what Kazan and regular writer Budd Schulberg are tilting at in the story of … Read more