Noir Fella Faves
I can’t deny that my focus in film noir features is heavily skewed toward the femmes – there are just so many varied dames to discuss! But every now and again, I like to shine the spotlight on the fellas on noir, so this month’s Noir Nook is devoted to three shadowy gents who I simply love (or love to hate, as the case may be).
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Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (1949)
This noirish version of Bonnie and Clyde features Peggy Cummins as Annie Laurie Starr and John Dall as Bart Tare; Bart has had a fascination with guns since he was a child and was sent to reform school for breaking into a hardware store to – you guessed it – steal a gun. And Annie’s no slouch when it comes handling a rod; when she first meets Bart, she’s working as a sharpshooter in a carnival.
Annie and Bart fall for each other and get married before you can say “Bob’s your uncle” (or “Jack Robinson,” if you prefer), but Annie’s not satisfied with the beans-and-franks-in-a-fleabag-hotel life that Bart is able to provide – and in a move that would put Phyllis Dietrichson to shame, Annie convinces her hubby that a life of crime is the only way to live. (Three guesses as to how this one turns out in the end. And the first two don’t count.)
Of all the hapless suckers in the shadowy realm of noir, Bart garners the most sympathy from me. There seemed to be a lot that was simply beyond his control: he couldn’t help loving guns, he was unable to resist his attraction to (and, later, his love for) Annie, he was compelled to go against his own principles in order to keep her in his life. As such, he wasn’t a bad guy – he was just a good guy doing bad things. And even with that, the worst “bad thing” he did was flash his gun and commit robberies; unlike his lady love, he abhorred violence, and never shot a living thing. He was just such a lovestruck sap that I can’t help holding a fond feeling for him – and experiencing more than a mere pang at his passing. (Belated spoiler alert!)
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Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944)
Played by Gene Tierney, the title character of this feature is dead when the film begins – or so we’re told by her friend, newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). We learn that she’s been murdered – shot in the face with a shotgun, no less – and a crackerjack police detective, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is tasked with finding her killer. The suspects he’s honed in on are Laura’s would-be fiancé and ne’er-do-well employee Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price); Laura’s aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), who barely masks the fact that she has eyes for Shelby; and Waldo. As it turns out, though, Laura isn’t dead, after all – but someone is, and McPherson still has to find out whodunit. And who. And why.
Waldo isn’t necessarily a likable character – he’s sharp-tongued, snobbish, and arrogant, with a persona that continuously walks the fine line between wit and cruelty; I love so many of his lines, but especially the one where he tells Laura, “Young woman, either you have been raised in some incredibly rustic community where good manners are unknown, or you suffer from the common feminine delusion that the mere fact of being a woman exempts you from the rules of civilized conduct. Or possibly both.” Still, when Waldo’s rancor isn’t aimed in your direction, he’s just the sort of person you want sitting next to you at a party — and I have to admit that I am wholly entertained whenever he’s around. And, sure, maybe he turns out to be a sociopath and a murderer, but really, until we get there, he gives us a fun ride, amirite?
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Mr. Brown in The Big Combo (1955)
One of my all-time favorite noirs (and one I would have seen on the big screen at this year’s TCM film festival had special guest Rosie Perez not dropped out at the last minute), The Big Combo presents a twisted triangle between tormented socialite Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace), her mob boss lover, Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), and police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde and Wallace’s then-husband), who is obsessed with her. Speaking of obsessions, Diamond is also fixated on bringing the seemingly untouchable Mr. Brown to justice – no matter what it takes.
Like Waldo Lydecker, Mr. Brown is not a nice man. When we first meet him, he’s berating a young boxer he has under contract, who has just lost a bout. Mr. Brown gives the young man his version of a pep talk, during which he points out the differences between himself and his second-in-command Joe McClure (Brian Donlevy), who used to be Mr. Brown’s boss. “First is first and second is nobody,” he offers (shortly before tearing up the hapless boxer’s contract). We get another glimpse into Mr. Brown’s persona when he encounters Lt. Diamond in the local hospital, where Susan has been taken after a suicide attempt. Their exchange in the corridor contains some unforgettable jabs on Mr. Brown’s part, including this zinger which, incidentally, he delivers to Diamond via Joe McClure; he doesn’t even bother looking in the detective’s direction: “Joe, tell the man I’m going to break him so fast he won’t have time to change his pants. Tell him the next time I see him he’ll be down in the hotel lobby crying like a baby and asking for a 10 dollar loan. Tell him that. And tell him I don’t break my word.” When I said earlier that Mr. Brown was not a nice man, that was putting it mildly – he was a stone-cold killer, a thorough-going narcissist whose misdeeds ranged from torturing Lt. Diamond, to imprisoning his wife in an insane asylum, to arranging an especially horrifying murder of his two loyal henchmen. And that’s not even the whole story! So why is he one of my favorite noir fellas? I suppose it comes down to this: when he’s in the room, he might as well be alone – he’s the only character I see. It’s just that simple.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unforgettable noir gents – stay tuned for a future post where I’ll take a look at more, Meanwhile, who are some of your favorite fellas of film noir? I hope you’ll leave a comment and let us know!
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– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
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