Dispatches From Noir

RIP Andy Griffith, 1926-2012

I grew up laughing at the antics in Mayberry, but Andy Griffith was probably at his best in this almost-film-noir directed by Elia Kazan.  Engaging, sinister and brilliantly prescient, A Face in the Crowd shows that Andy Griffith’s range as an actor was never really utilized on TV. 

In 1957, a demagogic entertainer was considered remarkable.  Today, Lonesome Rhodes would have his own cable news show.

As I’ve said before, Blade Runner is sci-fi.  But the film’s film noir influences are prominent.  So I’m kicking back and enjoying the movie this weekend.

And I would be remiss if I discussed Blade Runner without addressing the debate.  What do you say, geeky tumblchums?  Is Deckard a replicant?  

RIP Nora Ephron, 1941-2012

Ephron was a national treasure. She is probably most remembered by twentysomesthings like myself for her romantic comedies.  But there is so much more to her oeuvre.  The thriller Silkwood was Ephron’s first screenwriting credit.  Heartburn (the thinly-veiled novel and the film based on it, for which she also wrote the screenplay) is not only a vivid and heartbreaking account of Ephron’s marriage to the philandering Carl Bernstein, it also marks a sort of coda to Watergate itself.  All the president’s men might not have been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but Bernstein didn’t manage his own affairs (romantic and otherwise) too well, either.

But Ephron was probably at her best as an essayist.  I am a big fan of Esquire magazine, and all the fine writing that has appeared in its pages over the years.  Nora Ephron had a number of essays published in Esquire during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Fittingly, Esquire has a wonderful eulogy for Ephron.  

They also have posted her famous essay, “A Few Words About Breasts,” which appeared in the May 1972 issue of Esquire.  Man or woman, who doesn’t want to read about breasts?  If for some strange reason you don’t, then have a gander at her September 1973 piece, “Battle of the Sexes on the Tennis Court.”  Better yet, read ‘em both. 

In whatever medium she wrote, Nora Ephron was superlatively witty.  Esquire reprises some of her best lines, and the resultant Twitter hash tag #BestNoraEphronLine reveals even more. 

Nora Ephron was married for 25 years to fellow scribe Nicholas Pileggi.  Pileggi is no stranger to crime writing, having written the nonfiction books that were turned into Goodfellas and Casino.  Pileggi also wrote the screenplays for each of the films; the Goodfellas screenplay earned him an Oscar nomination.  Pileggi also chronicled the adventures of real-life private dick Irwin Blye in his 1976 book, Blye, Private Eye.  Pileggi is also a writer and executive producer on the very promising new CBS show Vegas, starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis.

Nora Ephrons’s witty and thoughtful observations will be missed.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Nicholas Pileggi as he mourns his wife.  

The most highly regarded of postwar British films noir, The Third Man strikes me as quite Chandleresque (Chandlerian?).  Holly Martens (a pulp scribe not unlike Chandler several decades earlier) puts the clues together slowly, but this film isn’t about detection.  Like Chandler’s novels, The Third Man delivers atmosphere (though Graham Greene’s plot is better than Chandler’s usually were).  The cinematography is beguiling, unnerving—and positively gorgeous.

Last night was the Tony Awards, which is longer on talent and shorter on self-congratulations than most award shows.  When I watch awards shows with the moll, we have a drink or two.  It was martinis for the Oscars.  But last night I let Raymond Chandler and Robert Altman pick the cocktails.  

Chandler’s description of a gimlet in The Long Goodbye is famous the world over:  

“They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”

In the 1973 film, Robert Altman and Elliott Gould transform Marlowe into a more self-aware private dick for The Seventies.  In the film version of The Long Goodbye, Marlowe orders a CC and ginger.  Technically, this is a highball and not a cocktail—and should be in a different glass.  

But let’s not split hairs.  Both are simple to make and delicious to drink.  And Raymond Chandler would never turn up his nose at that.

I wouldn’t call this a neo-noir, but it’s closer to Highsmith’s noir writing than (the beautiful travelogue) The Talented Mr. Ripley.  I also prefer Malkovich’s much more calculating Ripley to Damon’s by a long shot.

Is this noir?  I don’t think so, though I’m not sure what isn’t neo-noir anymore.  It’s a hell of a film, regardless.