Henry Hathaway

Kiss of Death

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Victor Mature cradles Coleen Gray's head

Fans of Richard Widmark who can’t get enough of his giggling psychopath routine, Kiss of Death is for you. This is where it all started, in 1947, a crime drama notable not only for being Widmark’s screen debut but also for delivering a really good performance by Victor Mature. Having grown up in a household where Mature’s presence on the small screen was usually greeted by titters, I personally wasn’t quite ready for this. But good he really is. He plays Nick Bianco, a smalltime crook who gets caught doing a jewellery heist but refuses to name his accomplices when taken in by the police. All this changes some way down the road … Read more

Call Northside 777

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McNeal in shirtsleeves with a coffee

Call Northside 777 tells the true story of a miscarriage of justice – Joseph Majczek framed for killing a cop in 1932 and sentenced to 99 years – and the crusading journalist from the Chicago Times who got the case overturned. The same story was the source material for Railroaded!, released the year before in 1947. It’s probably the better movie all told – better pace, fewer digressions – but Call Northside 777 has the advantage of a big spend and very well cast actors in its lead roles. James Stewart as cynical journalist PJ McNeal , Lee J Cobb as ballsy editor Brian Kelly and Richard Conte as the wrongly imprisoned man. Joe … Read more

The House on 92nd Street

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William Eythe and Signe Hasso

The House on 92nd Street is the sort of earnest propaganda movie Hollywood liked to pump out once in a while in the 1940s. It was made during wartime, so the justification is there, and it deals with a real case – the fifth column of Nazi-sympathising Americans working to overthrow their own government and install Hitler. And it’s based on a real case, the Duquesne spy ring. Director Henry Hathaway and his writers give us about ten minutes of sonorous scene-setting in a “ripped from the headlines” newsreel-voiceover style before introducing the hero – William Eythe’s Bill Dietrich, a second-generation German American who is recruited as a double agent by the FBI … Read more

The Dark Corner

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Bradford Galt hides in the shadows

The Dark Corner didn’t do too well when it debuted in 1946. There were too many other noirs around and it struggled to stand out from the pack. Now, though, it looks a lot better – its dark wit, snappy one liners and good cast help, plus the direction of Henry Hathaway, who knows how to be economical and inject pace. Hathaway blamed Mark Stevens for the film’s failure, and though Stevens is playing a private investigator as a second-order simulacrum – a version of a version – he gets the lines out well enough, and it is the lines that this film is about… when it’s not about plot. Stevens plays Bradford Galt, a … Read more

Niagara

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Rose in bed, red lips prominent

Shot of Niagara, anyone? As a film it’s famous for all sorts of reasons – a film noir in Technicolor, Marilyn Monroe’s first star billing, the use of Niagara Falls as a set backdrop. On the other hand it isn’t famous for being a good film. Even its stoutest supporters struggle to defend it, largely because it starts off as one thing and then fails to follow through on what looks like a delicious promise. Two couples at Niagara Falls, famous for its honeymooners. First we meet the Loomises. George (Joseph Cotten) the husband who we first glimpse moping about at the edge of the Falls at 5am. Rose (Marilyn Monroe) back at the … Read more