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In recognition of NAR’s forthcoming Gas sieur,” he confesses to French television, Station Pulp series, this Crosscuts high- Crosscuts filling his remaining days with over- lights recent releases of retro crime noir. BRIEF DVD REVIEWS determined, self-imposed ritual. Unable to live in the present, he’s unable to move Ace in the Hole (1951), Criterion 2014, GRANT TRACEY forward. The posters he hangs about town 111 mins, $39.95 • “They’ll do it as fast asking for clues to Saskia’s disappearance, as they can, but they got to do it right,” represent a dark void at the film’s center: says huckster reporter Chuck Tatum Saskia’s portrait dominates the poster’s (Kirk Douglas in a searing performance) graphic design and Rex’s thoughts. The in this cynical, hard-edged film courtesy killer, a sociopath chemistry profes- of Billy Wilder. Right? For whom? Not sor (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) sends for the man trapped in a collapsed mine; postcards daring Rex to meet him. The the engineers could get him out in 12–16 two do meet, and Rex, like Orpheus, looks hours by shoring up the beams and going behind into the past, fulfilling a promise in, but Tatum convinces them to drill to not only see but to re-live. from the top, a process that’ll take 6–7 days and thus give Tatum 6–7 days of Manhunter (1986), MGM, Shout Fac- storytelling to sell to the public and write tory 2016, 120–124 mins, $29.95 • “It’s his way out of his misery in Albuquerque. just you and me now, sport. I’m gonna Right means exploitation, cashing in. The find you, goddamn it,” Will Graham sheriff seeking re-election does it right, (William Petersen) promises as he projecting himself as a hero dedicated to looks through a café window, but it’s rescuing the man; the trapped man’s wife his own image that looks back at him. (the brittle and brassy Jan Sterling) does it Yes, this talented profiler is going to right too, allowing herself to be portrayed track down the serial killer known as in Tatum’s stories as forever dutiful, while Kansas City Confidential (1952), The the Tooth Fairy, but he also has to find in actuality she’s earning enough money Film Detective, 2016, 99 mins, $14.95 • a self lost in the ugly slipstream of a via her husband’s tragedy to get her own Four masked robbers heist a cool mil- killer’s thoughts. Graham’s quest for bus ticket out of town: her diner had lion from an armored car, and Joe Rolfe truth is Pyrrhic, causing him to die a never been more busy, filled up with car- (John Payne), an ex-con is falsely ac- little each day as he inhabits Keats’s idea nival gawkers. Lurid, dark, this no-holds cused of the crime. The robbers’ getaway of negative capability, transforming exposé on the American media’s pen- truck matches the one Rolfe delivers into the killer’s imagined probabilities, chant for sensation packs a real wallop. flowers in. Roughed up in a holding cell a dangerous space that just may reveal by overzealous cops, the disenfranchised the darker recesses of his own heart. The Red House (1947), The Film Rolfe goes undercover, infiltrating the Brooding, intense, creepy. Detective, 2016, 100 mins, $14.95 • gang to recover the money. The catch: European art cinema meets American the leader of the gang (Preston Foster) 99 River Street (1953), Kino Lorber melo-thriller in this tasty noir written is ex five-o and knows Rolfe is a phony. 2016, 83 mins, $19.98 • Phil Karlson’s and directed by Delmer Daves. Allene A second catch? His daughter (Coleen tough hitting noir opens with taxi-driver Roberts makes her stunning film debut Gray) is in love with Rolfe. Phil Karlson’s Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) watching a as the earnest and luminescent Meg, the direction is taut; photography of George televised replay of a boxing match from adopted daughter of Pete and Ellen Mor- E. Diskant moody and claustropho- three years ago when he vied for the gan (Edward G. Robinson and Judith bic—the final scene in the boat’s belly heavyweight title. He yearns for an ir- Anderson) who seeks out an obscured is muscular and sweaty. Clearly a crime retrievable past. His wife (Peggy Castle), past. Like a fairy tale protagonist Meg noir godfather to Tarantino’s Reservoir disenchanted with Driscoll’s recent is lured by the eerie sounds and “call” Dogs. fortunes, finds promises of wealth in of the forest to a strange red house. Pete an affair with a low-level wiseguy (Brad forbids Meg to explore the forest, the red The Vanishing (1988), Criterion, 2014, 106 Dexter). Driscoll, eventually framed house suggesting his tree of knowledge. mins, $29.95 • This tale of obsession plays for her murder, enters with the help of But Meg disobeys, reconnecting with like a neo-noir Greek Tragedy. Rex (Gene a stage actress (Evelyn Keyes) a dark, her origins. The past can never be fully Bervoets), who is already dead but doesn’t two-fisted demimonde in which one of repressed and as Meg rushes toward it know it yet, searches desperately for the heavies calls everyone “kitty.” There and Pete away from it the two collide Saskia (the ebullient Johanna ter Steege) Driscoll reaffirms his manhood and self- in an incendiary finish full of guilt and whom he lost on a sunny vacation trip worth. The cabbie’s life ambition: to run bizarre incestuous overtones. three years ago. “It’s an homage, mon- a gas station! ☐

Fall 2016 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 49