A Common Lanugage
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10 Noir City Sentinel SUMMER 2010 A COMMON LANGUAGE American Expatriate Directors in British Noir By Imogen Sara Smith Special to the Sentinel ILM NOIR owes much to exiles, those con- noisseurs of alienation and displacement. In FHollywood, noir was fed by the infusion of refugees from Nazi Germany, who brought with them the expressionist techniques and dark, unsavory world-view of Weimar cinema, now as verboten in their homeland as their Jewish blood. While no such flood of foreign talent fed British noir, a small cadre of American directors and actors blacklisted during the anti-communist witch-hunt of the 1950s took refuge in England. Jules Dassin, Edward Dmytryk, Cy Endfield and Joseph Losey had already directed noir films in America, where left- wing filmmakers often used crime movies to attack the corrosive effects of capitalism. Dassin soon moved on, but the other three stayed in Britain. Being driven out of their own countries because of their political beliefs—especially amid an atmosphere of betrayal, paranoia and surveillance—was unlikely to brighten their outlook. Their outsiders’ perspective, their sensitivity to class, and their personal experiences of dislocation were well suited to a time of cultural and social upheaval. In the aftermath of the war, the British struggled through a decade of rationing and austerity; they saw their Empire dissolve and the world re- orient itself around the economic, political and cultur- al might of America; at home the Labour Party under Clement Attlee radically reshaped the social land- Robert Newton in Obsession scape with soak-the-rich taxes, the nationalization of major industries, and the development of the “cradle- defensive, deprecatory humor can never be much fur- war: “one Yank and they’re off.” No, he has merely to-grave” welfare state. At the end of the 1950s, a ther off than the next rain shower. For some devised the perfect murder. cycle of plays and movies dubbed “kitchen sink real- Hollywood directors who had channeled their skepti- Obsession (1948, aka The Hidden Room) was one ism” revealed the anger and squalor of the working cal, pessimistic views into noir films, and been brand- of three films directed in England by Edward classes, and were met with shock and acclaim. In fact, ed “un-American,” Britain was not only a refuge, but Dmytryk, who fled the States after being branded one British cinema had been offering grim, unvarnished a country that spoke their language. of the Hollywood Ten. A son of Ukrainian immi- portraits of lower class life since the late 1930s under grants, he had worked his way up from a studio mes- the cover of crime thrillers, which mirrored the suc- I. “Thanks, Pal”: Obsession and senger and earned his noir stripes directing Murder, cess of American noir in smuggling subversive views the Anglo-American war of nerves My Sweet (1944) and Crossfire (1947) before his into mainstream entertainment. Four English gentlemen lounge over coffee and career was derailed by his brief membership in the The generation that grew up during and just after whiskey in the cozy mausoleum of their club, deploring Communist party and his refusal to cooperate with the the war found their identity in American rock and roll the problems of the day. The empire is being neglected; House Un-American Activities Committee. (He (an up-from-the-bottom art form) and styles copied Britain can no longer feed herself; they’re living off returned to the U.S. in 1951, served a six month jail from Hollywood movies—Marlon Brando’s motor- American dollars. “We’ve only got to pick up a news- sentence, recanted, denounced communism, and went cycle jacket, Tony Curtis’s hair. When four lads from paper and what do we read about? Americans!” one ful- back to work.) Dmytryk’s other two British films Liverpool became the Beatles, the despised “scouse” minates, seeing a headline reporting the disappearance were just the fare HUAC feared: So Well Remembered accent that a generation earlier would have assigned of a U.S. officer stationed in London. One of the men in (1947) is about a reformer’s attempt to alleviate them to lives as tram-drivers or dock-workers became the club, Dr. Clive Riordan (Robert Newton), knows the poverty in a depressed Lancashire mill town, and Give the voice of England to the rest of the world. The exu- answer to the mystery, but he stays silent. Us This Day (1949, aka Christ in Concrete) follows berance of rock music and the groovy excesses of The missing person is a light-hearted young sol- the struggles of Italian immigrant laborers in New “Swinging London” were a revolt against postwar dier named Bill Kronin (Phil Brown), who was carry- York. But Obsession is something else entirely: a austerity. The gritty crime dramas of the 1950s and ing on a flirtation with the doctor’s gorgeous, shallow, witty, sophisticated thriller with a macabre, black- the short-lived “kitchen sink” movement gave way to incorrigibly unfaithful wife Storm (Sally Gray). Bill comic edge, and a sly riff on cold-fish Englishmen lighter, escapist films like the James Bond series. had the misfortune to be the last straw, the victim for and their fondness for joking about murder. “About once in each century,” Neal Ascherson whom Clive was waiting with an elaborately concoct- Clive is tormented by his wife’s infidelity, but not writes, “the British allow themselves to hope.” They ed plan. Nothing so crude as divorce or socking his because he loves her; it’s impossible to imagine this briefly imitate the optimism of their cousins across rival on the nose; nothing so ineffectual as joining in smugly detached man who plays with elaborate model the pond; the belief in transformation and progress. the bitter complaints about G.I.’s “overpaid, over- train sets in his basement being goaded by romantic or But for the people “described as the only nation to sexed and over here,” or repeating the popular joke sexual feelings. What he can’t endure is the insult to feel Schadenfreude about themselves,” fatalism and about cheap women’s underwear made during the his intelligence posed by her deceit. His revenge is SUMMER 2010 Noir City Sentinel 11 inspired by the need to demonstrate his superior clev- sexual perversion (the story was loosely inspired by who has finally sickened of his sponging and philan- erness; poor Bill Kronin is a hapless pawn in his Faulkner’s Sanctuary, filmed in 1933 as The Story of dering, talks them into robbing the post office on a impeccably sadistic scheme to punish his wife. Temple Drake, starring La Rue as the rapist), and it night when sacks of old money are brought in to be Clive comes up with the unique “insurance policy” was met by disgust and outrage in the press. No exchanged. In its focus on a heist, with the trappings of kidnapping Bill and holding him prisoner for Orchids doesn’t live up to its notoriety, but the love of a stolen car and a suitcase full of guns, the film bor- months, waiting to see whether he will be suspected in story between a kidnapper and his victim is surpris- rows liberally from American noir, even down to the the disappearance. Once he’s in the clear, he can carry ingly touching. omniscient narrator and a car rolling through dark city out the actual murder without increasing his chances of The Good Die Young (1954), by English director streets under the credits. being caught. He’s particularly pleased with the Lewis Gilbert, successfully blends its trans-Atlantic But while Joe (Richard Basehart) and Eddie (John method he’s devised for disposing of the body: a chem- Ireland) are archetypal ordinary guys who make one ical compound that dissolves flesh and bone— bad decision, the fate of the two Englishmen is less without damaging plumbing! Stuffing a body in a contingent on their individual circumstances than trunk is, after all, “so old-fashioned; quite an determined by their place in a rigid class system. Miles English institution.” “Rave” Ravenscourt (Laurence Harvey) is handsome, So, for months, the resourceful and good- idle and narcissistic; his wife paints him as an idealized humored American is chained up in a cellar under polo-playing gentleman, but he’s really a sociopathic a deserted bomb site, turning into a gaunt, bearded, liar and killer. Mike (Stanley Baker) is a washed-up shivering wreck. The fresh and charming Brown, boxer well aware of the exploitative nature of the fight another blacklist exile, holds his own against game; after a lifetime of being pounded in the ring, he Newton at his most diabolically mild. The doctor is determined to bring his savings up to a meager visits every day, bringing cold chicken and sand- £1,000 and fights with a broken hand, which he loses wiches, thermoses of martinis, and Boswell’s Life of to gangrene. He quietly absorbs injuries and injustice; Johnson, as well as acid in hot-water bottles, with when he learns that his wife has wasted all his money which he gradually fills a bathtub in preparation for on bail for her brother, leaving him with nothing but the corpse. scars to show for his career, his fury gutters out quick- The two maintain a flawless gentlemanly charade, ly, leaving him bitter but resigned. though on Bill’s side the courtesy is bitterly sarcastic. His role in The Good Die Young was a break- On Clive’s it seems sincere; he likes the man he’s tor- through for Welsh-born Stanley Baker, who like many turing.