A Dark Double of Friday Femmes Fatale

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

The Killers (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Friday film night arrived with Arthur bearing the now traditional Melton Mowbray pie and beer and a selection of DVDs. His suggested programme was the 1946 version of the classic "noir" "The Killers" and a similarly dark film from the same period, the murder mystery "Laura". I eagerly agreed to this, which sounded (and turned out to be) an excellent double feature.

The beer this week was a change from the usual Shepherd Neame "Spitfire" as Arthur had substituted a Sussex Gold bitter from Arundel Brewery, its sharp hoppy taste a perfect complement to the richness of the pork and pastry.

Robert Siodmak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lancaster as "Swede" Andersen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It proved to be a cinematic feast too as we kicked off with the properly scary duo of assassins, confident in their power of life and death, looking for boxer-gone-wrong Burt Lancaster in Robert Siodmak's version of Hemingway's "The Killers". Although we knew what was coming, having seen this and its remake from 1964 starring Lee Marvin, the beginning of the film still has a powerful impact aided by the driving "Dragnet" score by Miklós Rózsa. Hollywood deservedly recognised Siodmak's definitive noir with an Oscar nomination and it was a bitter, tasty and satisfying start.

Cropped screenshot of Dana Andrews from the trailer for the film Laura. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pin-up photo of Gene Tierney for the May 25, 1945 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly, a weekly U.S. Army magazine fully staffed by enlisted men. (Photo credit: Wikip

We looked in vain for the "ice-cream lady" in our makeshift 1940's cinema and pressed on with the second feature, another dark offering, this time from 1944. This is no "B" feature, making the evening a solid double-A film night. Preminger's teasing noir has a topline cast including Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price and is a tale of mighty egos, passion and jealousy from a novel by Vera Caspery adapted by a team of scriptwriters which included (uncredited) the controversial Ring Lardner Jnr.



Lardner's brother had been killed fighting fascism in Spain and Ringgold's own left wing politics made him unpopular with the studio heads and eventually caused him to fall foul of the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. Here in England we benefited as, during his 1950s exile in Britain he wrote for our television series including the fondly remembered "Adventures of Robin Hood". A recent series on the same subject paid homage to this by including a "mcguffin" called "Lardner's ring" How much influence Lardner had on the script I don't know but Laura's is a good one.

Cropped screenshot of Clifton Webb from the trailer for the film Laura. (Photo credit: Wikipedia

The eponymous Laura is such a femme fatale that she captures the heart of Detective Lieutenant McPherson (Dana Andrews) from "beyond the grave" and he is not alone as her charms have knocked Clifton Webb and Vincent Price senseless too. This is a deliciously arch thriller full of great dialogue, particularly that spoken by writer Waldo "I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." Lydecker, played by Clifton Webb.

This is going to be a hard act to follow...